[1] At Yuma, Phoenix and Tucson, the records of twenty-six, eighteen and fifteen years respectively show a rate of evaporation 35.2, 12.7, and 7.7 times as great as the mean annual rainfall, which was 2.84 in., 7.06 in. and 11.7 in. for the places named.
[2] The San Francisco yellow pine forest, with an area of some 4700 sq. m., is the finest forest of the arid south-west.
[3] The combined flow of the Salt and Verde varies from 100 to more than 10,000 cub. ft. per second.
[4] The dam locks a narrow canyon. The height is 284 ft., the water rising 230 ft. against it. The storage capacity is exceeded by probably but one reservoir in the world—the Wachusett reservoir near Boston.
ARJUNA, in Hindu mythology, a semi-divine hero of the Mahabharata. He was the third son of Pandu, son of Indra, His character as sketched in the great epic is of the noblest kind. He is the central figure of that portion of the epic known as the Bhagwad-gita, where he is represented as horrified at the impending slaughter of a battle and as being comforted by Krishna.
ARK (a word common to Teutonic languages, cf. Ger. Arche, adapted from the Lat. arca, chest, cf. arcere, to shut up, enclose), a chest, basket or box. The Hebrew word tebah, translated in the A.V. by “ark,” is used in the Old Testament (1) of the box made of bulrushes in which Pharaoh’s daughter found the infant Moses (Exodus ii. 3), and (2) of the great vessel or ship in which Noah took refuge during the flood (Genesis vi.-ix.).
Noah’s Ark.—According to the story in Genesis, Noah’s ark was large enough to contain his family and representatives of each kind of animal. Its dimensions are given as 300 cubits long, 50 cubits broad and 30 cubits high (cubit = 18-22 in.). It was made of “gopher” wood, which has been variously identified with cypress, pine and cedar. Before the days of the “higher criticism” and the rise of the modern scientific views as to the origin of species, there was much discussion among the learned, and many ingenious and curious theories were advanced, as to the number of the animals and the space necessary for their reception, with elaborate calculations as to the subdivisions of the ark and the quantities of food, &c., required to be stored. It may be interesting to recall the account given in the first edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1771), which contained a summary of some of these various views (substantially repeated up to the publication of the eighth edition, 1853). “Some have thought the dimensions of the ark as given by Moses too scanty ... and hence an argument has been drawn against the authority of the relation. To solve this difficulty many of the ancient Fathers and the modern critics have been put to miserable shifts. But Buteo and Kircher have proved geometrically that, taking the cubit of a foot and a half, the ark was abundantly sufficient for all the animals supposed to be lodged in it. Snellius computes the ark to have been above half an acre in area ... and Dr Arbuthnot computes it to have been 81,062 tuns ... if we come to a calculation the number of species of animals will be found much less than is generally imagined, not amounting to a hundred species of quadrupeds, nor to two hundred of birds.... Zoologists usually reckon but an hundred and seventy species in all.” The progress of the “higher criticism,” and the gradual surrender of attempts to square scientific facts with a literal interpretation of the Bible, are indicated in the shorter account given in the eighth edition, which concludes as follows:—“the insuperable difficulties connected with the belief that all the existing species of animals were provided for in the ark, are obviated by adopting the suggestion of Bishop Stillingfleet, approved by Matthew Poole, Pye Smith, le Clerc, Rossenmüller and others, that the deluge did not extend beyond the region of the earth then inhabited, and that only the animals of that region were preserved in the ark.” The first edition also gives an engraving of the ark (repeated in the editions up to the fifth), in shape like a long roofed box, floating on the waters; the animals are seen in separate stalls. By the time of the ninth edition (1875) precise details are no longer considered worthy of inclusion; and the age of scientific comparative mythology has been reached.