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496 A R G A K G collected in the years 1806 and 1872 respectively, the figures representing hard dollars as before: 1866. Import Duties ....................... 6,686,000 Export ................................ 2,164,000 Warehousing ........................ 263,000 Stamp Duties ........................ 127,000 Post Office ............................ 57,000 Property Tax ........................ 196,000 Sundries .............................. 68,000 1872. 14,464,827 2,621,353 504,212 310,806 137,434 62,226 71,512 9,561,000 18,172,379 The revenue, as shown by the above tables, is obtained chiefly from the Custom-House ; and of the duties on the foreign trade of the country more than four-fifths are col lected in Buenos Ayres. The ordinary expenditure for 1872 is returned as 7,419,832 dollars; but to this the interest of the national debt has to be added, with other extraordinary expenditure, raising the whole amount to 23,992,975 dollars. The deficit in 1872 was thus 5,820,596 dollars. Besides the expenses of the National Government, each province has its separate, revenue. That of the province of Buenos Ayres amounted in 1871, as shown by the Report of the provincial minister of finance, to more than 5,000,000 hard dollars. The following state ment of the national debt of the republic at the end of 1872, is taken from the Almanack de Gotha for 1875 : Hard Dollars. 8,672,590 1,757,645 10,824,590 28,840,910 Foreign Loans English Loan of 1868 2,209,100 English Loan of 1871, 6 per ) cent, interest, and 2^ per | 5,885,900 cent, amortisation ) Total amount of Foreign debt Home debt, 6 per cent., and 1 per cent. amortisation Home debt, 6 per cent., and 2i per cent. amortisation Roads and Bridges, 8 per cent, interest Total of National debt Buenos Ayres Provincial Debt : 6 per cent, interest, and 3 per cent, amor tisation 9 per cent, interest, and 3 per cent, amor tisation 50,095,735 18,055,623 1,802,353 1,033,000 70,986,711 636,000 910,000 Total (about 14,800,000 sterling).... 72,532,711 Further information respecting the republic will be found under BUENOS AYRES and other headings. (w. L. J.) ARGOL, the commercial name under which the crude tar tar of commerce is known. It is a semi-crystalline deposit which forms on wine vats, and is either grey or red according to the colour of the wine from which it separates. ARGONAUTS, in Greek Legend, a band of heroes who sailed in the ship "Argo" from lolcus, in Thessaly, to JEa, in Colchis, on the further shore of the Black Sea, to fetch the golden fleece, which was there guarded by a dragon in a grove sacred to Mars. This task had been imposed on Jason that he might prove himself by a peril ous adventure worthy of the throne of lolcus, which he claimed from the usurper Pelias, at whose hands he and his father ^Eson had suffered persecution. To accompany him, Jason, when the "Argo" was ready, called upon the principal heroes of his own race, the Minyse, whose distant j voyages and colonisation in very early times seem to have j suggested the legend of this expedition. Of these Acastus I the son of Pelias, Adrnetus of Pherse, Euphemus (repre sented as connected with the colonisation of Thera and Gyrene), Periclymenus, Erginus, and Tiphys the steers man, joined him. So far the crew appears well fitted to conduct the "Argo " to Colchis, leaving Jason to reserve his i strength for the culminating act, in which also they had mostly, apart from their friendship for Jason, a special interest, because of previous events connected with the golden fleece, the story of which was as follows. Jason s uncle Athamas had by his wife Nephele two children, Phrixus and Helle. The mother died, and her place was taken by Ino, a daughter of Cadmus, who from hatred of her step-children persuaded Athamas, by means of a false oracle, to offer his son Phrixus as a sacrifice, in consequence of a famine which she had caused by having the grain secretly roasted before it was sown. But before the sac rifice the shade of Nephele appeared to Phrixus, bringing a ram with a golden fleece, on which he and his sister Helle were to escape over the sea. Helle fell off and was drowned in the strait, which thence took the name of Hellespont. Phrixus reached the other side, and proceeding on land to Colchis, sacrificed the ram, and hung up its fleece in the grove of Mars. With the family of Athamas the original crew of the "Argo" were more or less connected. But in the later versions of the story it is clear that such a voyage could not in after times be conceived without a variety of adventures, for which other and better known heroes had to be added. Of these the chief were Hercules, Castor and Pollux, Orpheus, Mopsus, and the sons of Boreas, Calais and Zetes. The outward course of the "Argo" was the same as that of the Greek traders, whose settle ments as early as the 6th century B.C. dotted the southern shore of the Black Sea. The first landing-place was Lemnus, which the Argonauts found occupied only by women who, at the instigation of Aphrodite, had slain their husbands, fathers, &c. Here some stay was made, and Hypsipyle bore Jason a son, Euneos, who afterwards traded with the Greeks before Troy and with the Phoeni cians. That the Minyse had at a very early period formed settlements in Lemnus is known from Herodotus (iv. 145). They landed at Cyzicus next, and here occurred the in cident of Hercules and Hylas. The former having broken an oar after they started, went into a wood to cut a new one, Hylas accompanying him to fetch water. Some nymphs admiring the beauty of the youth carried him off. Hercules followed his cries, but could not find him. Nor was he ever found, though the hero exacted hostages till this should be done. On reaching the modern Scutari, they again landed to get water, and were challenged by the king, Amycus, to match him with a boxer. Pollux came forward, and in the end overpowered his adversary, and bound him to a tree. At the entrance to the Black Sea they met Phineus, the blind and aged king whose food was being constantly polluted by the Harpies. He knew the course to Colchis, and offered to tell it, if the Argonauts would free him from the Harpies. This was done by the winged sons of Boreas, and Phineus now told them their course, and that the way to pass through the Symplegades two cliffs which moved on their bases and crushed whatever sought to pass was first to fly a pigeon through, and when the cliffs, having closed on the pigeon, began to retire to each side, to row the "Argo" swiftly through. His advice was successfully followed. The next place they landed at, and the last before reaching Colchis, was Hera- clea, where the steersman Tiphys died. To the early Greeks Colchis was the eastern extremity of the earth, as the Pillars of Hercules were the western. Behind both was the Oceanus, into which the river Phasis flowed at Colchis. At Colchis

was the rising of the sun, and JEetes the king was a sen