Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 3, Anatomy-Astronomy

396
Arau-
Arbela.
ARB
wealth consists in flocks and herds, and their industry is con¬
fined to husbandry. See America, Chili.
ARAUCARIA, a beautiful genus of the Conifene. It
differs from other firs by its broad shining leaves. The first
species was found in the mountains of Araucania; and the
two other known species are found in various parts of South
America, and in some islands in the Pacific. A. excelsa
grows freely in sheltered situations in Britain; where itis called
Norfolk Island Pine.
ARAUSIO, Civitas Arausiensis or Arausicorum, or Co~
Ionia Secundanorum ; so called, because the veterans of the
second legion were there settled ; now Orange, in the west
of Provence, on an arm of the river Aigues. See Orange.
ARAVULLI, a range of mountains in Rajpootana, ex¬
tending about 300 miles from north-east to south-west, where
they are separated from the Vindhya mountains by the valley
of the river Mhye. The Aravul'li form a series of ridges,
covering a breadth of from 6 to 60 miles, with a general ele¬
vation of 3600 feet. They rise abruptly from the western
desert, but fall gradually towards the east. Their general
geological character is of primitive formation, with rocks of
granite, compact dark blue slate, gneiss, and sienite; and the
summits of the diverging ranges, west of Ajmere, are quite
dazzling, says Colonel Tod, not with snow like the Hima¬
layas, but with enormous masses of vitreous rose-coloured
quartz. To the north of Komulmair, 25° north latitude, two
of their ridges form a continuous table-land between them,
6 to 20 miles in width, as far as Ajmere, where it breaks up
from the tabular form, and sends off numerous branches of
low rocky hills, through Jeypour and Alwar, which reach the
Jumnah in the vicinity of Delhi. That part of the range
between Komulmair and Ajmere, called Mairwarra, or the
region of hills, is inhabited by the Mairs, a branch of the
Mairas, one of the aboriginal tribes of India, who have lived
for ages by robbery, being at constant war with their Raj¬
poot neighbours. They have yielded, however, to British
influence, and give fair promise of becoming a civilized and
industrious people.
ARBACES was governor of Media under Sardanapalus
king of Assyria. Disgusted by the effeminacy of the king, he
stirred up his people to revolt, and dethroned Sardanapalus,
who thereupon burnt himself in his palace. Arbaces founded
the monarchy of the Medes, which lasted 317 years under
eight kings, till Astyages was expelled by Cyrus. Arbaces
reigned 28 years, and died b.c. 848, (Diodorus, ii.) He¬
rodotus gives a different account; but the authority of Ctesias
whose original work has perished, is followed by most ancient
historians. (V, Paterculus i.6; Justin, i. 3; Strabo, xvi. 737.)
-U or Cross-bow. See Cross-bow.
, , ,f’a"ciently Arba, an island and city of Illyria, in
the Gulf of Quarnaro. Of this island, which has been but
7Ki un0tlfC(Aby SeograPhers, there is a full account in the
Abbe Fortis s Account of Dalmatia. The appearance of the
island is exceedingly pleasant. On the east it has a very
high mountain at the foot of which the rest of the island is
extended to the westward, and divided into beautifiil and
fruitful plains interspersed with little hills fit to bear the rich-
est products. At the extremity that looks to the north a
delightful promontory, called Loparo, stretches into the sea •
it is crowned with little hills, which almost inclose a fine culti-
vated pkm. Near this promontory are the two small islands
of S. Gregorio and Goh. The city stands between two har¬
bours on a rising ground almost peninsular.
ARB EL A, now Arbil or Erbil, atown of Asiatic Tur¬
key, to the east of the Tigris, in Long. 44. 5. E. and Lat
36. 11. N., 40 miles east of Mosul. It appears to have been
once a very large town, but is now quite decayed. It is built
on an artificial mound, about 150 feet high, surrounded by a
wall inclosing about a thousand houses, and there are about
500 more at its foot. Its inhabitants are Kurds and Turks.
ARB
It is famous in history as having given its name to the last Arh
decisive battle, b.c. 331, between Alexander the Great and j! ^
Darius Codomannus, the last king of Persia. The battle Arbitra.
was fought in the plain of Gaugamela, fifty miles distant, and tion'
Alexander pursued the fugitives to Arbela. See Greece.
ARBERG, a town of Switzerland, in the canton of Bern
with a handsome castle, where the bailiff resides. It is seated
on the river Aar, in a kind of island; and since 1830 has been
fortified. Long. 7. 15. E. Lat. 47. 0. N. Pop. 850.
ARBITRARY, that which is left to choice or arbitration,
or not fixed by any positive law or injunction.
Arbitrary Punishment, in Law, denotes such punish¬
ments as are by statute left to the discretion of the judge.
It is a general rule in arbitrary punishments, that the judge
cannot inflict death. Hence all punishments that are not
capital have acquired the name of arbitrary 'punishments,
even although they be expressly pointed out by statute.
ARBITRATION, a terra derived from the nomenclature
of the Roman law, and applied to an arrangement for taking
and abiding by the judgment of a selected person in some dis¬
puted matter, instead of carrying it to the established courts
of justice. Arrangements for avoiding the delay and expense
of litigation, and referring a dispute to friends or neutral
persons, are a natural practice, of which traces may be found
in any state of society; but it is to the Justinian jurispru¬
dence that we owe it as a system which has found its way
into the practice of European nations in general, and has even
evafled the dislike of the English common lawyers to the
civil law. The eighth section of the fourth book of the
Pandects is devoted to this subject, and may be consulted
through the commentary of Heineccius, or a more minute
critical inquiry by Gerard Noodt, in his commentary on this
section (Opera, ii. 135). Almost all the advantages, as well
as the defects of the system in modern practice, seem to have
been anticipated by the Roman jurists. Thus it is shown that
voluntarily selected judges can only properly decide questions
which the parties themselves could settle by giving and tak¬
ing, and that they ought not to be authorized to deal with
criminal inquiries or public questions ; while, by excluding
matters of personal status, such as marriage or legitimacy, the
Roman jurists anticipated the principle, that even private
questions which may affect the public morals or policy cannot
be thus extrajudicially disposed of. They dwell on the prin¬
cipal advantage of the system in excluding appeal from the
arbiter’s decision on any such ground as erroneous law, or
false views of the influence of well-investigated facts. But,
on the other hand, they discuss, with their usual scientific
subtlety, the many defects, such as excess of authority, ne¬
glect of form, and partiality in receiving pleadings or evi¬
dence, and the like, by which arbitrations become vitiated;
and thus these jurists at once suggest what is ever the defect
of a system of arbitration, that the more it performs its func¬
tion of doing justice, the more it becomes what the esta¬
blished tribunals of the country ought to be, and fosters two
systems of judicature where one should be sufficient. Some
of the civilians make a distinction between the arbitrator, the
name technically applicable to a person voluntarily chosen by
parties to decide disputes, and the arbiter an officer to whom
the praetor remitted questions of fact as to a jury. In this
sense arbiters appear to have been employed as a substitute
for jury trial in some of the old provincial laws of France;
and hence, perhaps, it comes that, by a very remarkable pro¬
vision in the French code of commerce, all questions between
partners touching the partnership must be referred to arbi¬
tration. In the code of civil procedure, the title des arbi¬
trages is treated so fully and minutely, as very forcibly to con¬
vey the impression of a separate system of voluntary juris-
iction being created for performing what ought to be ac¬
complished by the ordinary tribunals in a well-regulated judi-
cia system. In Scotland, the practice of arbitration has been