years, and is properly a post-graduate course with reference to the united States Military Academy.
Ar'undel Marbles, part of a collection of ancient sculptures and antiquities gathered among the ruins of Greece early in the 17th century at the expense of the Earl of Arundel, and since 1667 in the possession of the University of Oxford. The most valuable of the marbles is the one bearing the Parian Chronicle, a compendium of the chief events in Grecian and Athenian history, covering a period of 1,318 years or from the reign of Cecrops (1582 B. C.) to the archonship of Diognetus (264 B. C.). The Arundel Society of London, instituted in 1848 for promoting the knowledge of art by the publication of facsimiles and photographs, was named after the Earl of Arundel.
Aryans (ar'yans), the name given to the parent race from which most of the modern Europeans are supposed to have descended. The race, possibly, lived originally in the highlands of Central Asia and spoke a common language. Now and then small groups separated from the parent fold and traveled to the northwest. The first of these groups were the Celts, who once seem to have spread over a large part of Europe, though the Welsh and Irish and a few other peoples are all that is left of them. A good while later the ancestors of the Italians, the Greeks and the Germans started westward and settled in the regions which these nations now occupy. Other tribes that set out in the same way are the Slavs, the Persians and the upper classes of Hindus. The languages of these different peoples are now quite different; but they show that they were once all part of the same root-tongue. The parent race was a peaceful, agricultural people, having a definite form of government. They probably lived in towns and built houses. All that we know about them comes from the study of the languages of European nations and of the Old-Persian and the high-caste races of Hindustan. The English are a branch of the Aryan race through the Germans.
Asa, son of Abijah and great-grandson of Solomon, was the third king of Judah and reigned from about 929 to 873 B. C. He was very zealous in opposing the worship of heathen gods, and is noted for the wisdom of his rule. A great army which the king of Ethiopia sent against him he completely overthrew. During most of his reign he was at war with Baasha, king of Israel, and at one time formed an alliance against him with the king of Damascus. His son Jehoshaphat succeeded him.
A'saph, one of the leaders of the choir appointed by King David for the religious service. His position probably became hereditary, his descendants thus forming a kind of religious order. He is supposed to have written several psalms.
Asbes'tos, an incombustible mineral of a flax-like, fibrous texture, composed of silica, magnesia and lime, and usually occurring in veins in highly metamorphic rocks. The sources of supply of commercial asbestos are deposits of two distinct minerals: one a variety of serpentine known as chrysotile; the other a variety of amphibole. The Canadian product, which is much prized, is of the chrysotile variety, and is chiefly found in the Thetford district, in the province of Quebec. There the more expensive grades have a value of from $150 to $250 a ton, though the mill fibre or paper stock commands but $30 or so a ton. The yield of the Canadian product in 1910, was 75,678 tons, valued at $2,458,929, the most of which was exported, only a small part being reserved for home consumption. The sources of the supply in this country are the states of Georgia and Wyoming, Idaho and Vermont. In the United States the yield in 1910 was but 3,693 short tons, valued at $68,357. The foreign sources, besides Canada, where asbestos is found, are Australia, Russia, Corsica and the Tyrol. The uses are now many to which asbestos is put, among them the manufacture of fireproof clothing, lining ^felt^ theater curtains, etc., where protection is sought from fire; it is also in use for incasing steam pipes, pistons, hot-air joints and furnace pipes as well as for lampwicks, gas stoves and fireproof safes. It is valuable also for its heat-retaining properties. The ancients were familiar with asbestos, making use of it to envelope corpses on the funeral pyre, so as to retain the ashes.
As'bury, Francis, the first bishop of the Methodist Episcopal church ordained in America. He was born in Staffordshire, England, August 20, 1745. At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to a mechanic, but two years later was led to begin work as a local preacher. Later he joined the itinerant ministry, and after three years of service was sent as a missionary to America, being appointed in the following year general assistant by John Wesley. Here he brought new life into the work, and at the outbreak of the Revolution, when many other ministers returned to England, he kept on in his labors. At the end of the war, it was decided to found an independent M. E. church for America, and he was ordained in 1784 as bishop by his colleagues who had already been ordained by Wesley in England. For more than thirty years he worked earnestly and successfully, and the wonderful progress of Methodism in America was largely due to his efforts and ability. In many respects he was much like his teacher and chief, John Wesley. He helped to lay the foundation of the first Methodist college in America in 1785. He died in Virginia in 1816.
