an arrondissement in the department of the Mouths of the Rhone, in France, extending over 900 square miles, or 576,124 acres. It is divided into eight cantons, and subdivided into thirty-one communes, which in 1851 contained 87,749 inhabitants.

Arles (the ancient Arelos, or Arelate), a city of France, in the department of Bouches du Rhone, and capital of an arrondissement of its own name, 46 miles north-west of Marseille, with which, and with Avignon, it is connected by railway. Lat. 43. 40. 18. N. Long. 4. 37. 46. E. It stands on the left bank of the Rhone, where that river divides to form its Delta; and to obviate the inconvenience of the difficult navigation, the Canal d'Arles has been constructed, extending to the harbour of Bouc on the Mediterranean, a distance of 25 miles. It is also connected with the canal of Beaucaire, and by that of Craponne with the Durance. The town is inclosed with old walls; the streets are narrow, dirty, and intricate; and the houses generally are old and mean. The marshes in the vicinity render it somewhat unhealthy. It has a handsome town-hall, an ancient cathedral, a college, school of navigation, museum, public library, docks for ship-building, &c. The principal manufactures are silk, soap, glass bottles; and its sausages are famous. The trade also in agricultural produce, cattle, wool, and salt, is considerable. Pop. in 1846, 14,239.

Arles possesses many magnificent and interesting monuments of its ancient grandeur. The remains of its amphitheatre, which was capable of containing from 25,000 to 30,000 spectators, measure 459 feet in length by 338 feet in width. It has also remains of a Roman theatre, in which the celebrated statue known as the "Venus of Arles" was discovered in 1651; the ruins of two temples, an aqueduct, a triumphal arch, and an extensive cemetery containing many sarcophagi, the Elysi campi of the Romans, whence its modern appellation of Aliscamps. In front of the town-hall, and in the centre of the Place Royale, is a plain granite obelisk of a single block 47 feet long, erected on a pedestal 20 feet in height. This obelisk, which had long lain buried in the earth, was elevated to its present position in 1676. It was once supposed to be Egyptian, but it is now ascertained to have been brought from a quarry in the Estrelle Mountains near Frejus; besides, it tapers more rapidly than those of Egypt, and has no hieroglyphics. Arelate was an important town when Caesar invaded Gaul. Subsequently, a Roman colony was established there; and in the time of the Emperors it became one of the most flourishing towns on this side of the Alps. After being pillaged A.D. 270, it was repaired, embellished, and greatly enlarged by Constantine; and here his son Constantine II. was born. On

labour. The result has shown the soundness of Mr Rasbotham's opinion. It is doubtful whether 30,000 persons were employed in all the branches of the cotton manufacture in 1767; whereas, in consequence of those very inventions which the workmen endeavoured to destroy, there are now upwards of 1,000,000 directly engaged in its different departments! There is, in fact, no idea so groundless and absurd as that which supposes that an increased facility of production can, under any circumstances, be injurious to the labourers. Armagh. the fall of the Roman empire, Arelate came into the power of the Visigoths, and rapidly declined; and in 730 it was blundered by the Saracens. In 933 it became the capital of a kingdom of the same name, formed by the union of the two kingdoms of Burgundy (Cisjurian and Transjurian). In the twelfth century it formed a republic; and in 1251 it submitted to Charles of Anjou, Count of Provence, and was united to the crown with that province in the reign of Louis XI. Many ecclesiastical councils have been held here; the most important of which was that against the Donatists in 314.