If a tree has been stripped of its bark in some spot, nature makes provision for this and gives a greater supply of nourishing sap to the stripped portion than to any other, so that in place of what has been taken away the bark grows thicker than in any other spot. And so impetuous is the motion of the sap that when it reaches the spot which is to be healed, it rises higher like a bounding ball, in bubbles, not unlike boiling water.
Dance and Provencal song and sunburnt mirth! Oh for a beaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene! With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple-stained mouth.
The earth hath bubbles as the water has, And these are of them.
~Genius.~--Genius is rarely found without some mixture of eccentricity, as the strength of spirit is proved by the bubbles on its surface.--_Mrs. Balfour._
The earth hath bubbles, as the water has, / And these are of them.
For what are men who grasp at praise sublime, / But bubbles on the rapid stream of time, / That rise and fall, that swell and are no more, / Born and forgot, ten thousand in an hour.
Nonetheless, gazing out the train window at a random sample of the the Western world, I could not avoid noticing a kind of separation between human beings and all other species. We cut ourselves off by living in cement blocks, moving around in glass-and-metal bubbles, and spending a good part of our time watching other human beings on television. Outside, the pale light of an April sun was shining down on a suburb. I opened a newspaper and all I could find were pictures of human beings and articles about their activities. There was not a single article about another species.
And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be Borne, like thy bubbles, onward; from a boy I wantoned with thy breakers, And trusted to thy billows far and near, And laid my hand upon thy mane,--as I do here.
I met him in a swamp down in Dagobah Where it bubbles all the time like a giant carbonated soda S-O-D-A soda I saw the little runt sitting there on a log I asked him his name and in a raspy voice he said Yoda Y-O-D-A Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda Well I've been around but I ain't never seen A guy who looks like a Muppet but he's wrinkled and green Oh my Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda Well I'm not dumb but I can't understand How he can raise me in the air just by raising his hand Oh my Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda -- Weird Al Yankovic, "The Star Wars Song," to the tune of "Lola" by the Kinks
"On the fourth day of the sail, a large canoe was descried, which seemed to have touched at a low isle of corals. He steered away from it; but the savage craft bore down on him; and soon the voice of Steelkilt hailed him to heave to, or he would run him under water. The captain presented a pistol. With one foot on each prow of the yoked war-canoes, the Lakeman laughed him to scorn; assuring him that if the pistol so much as clicked in the lock, he would bury him in bubbles and foam.
But the bodings of the crew were destined to receive a most plausible confirmation in the fate of one of their number that morning. At sun-rise this man went from his hammock to his mast-head at the fore; and whether it was that he was not yet half waked from his sleep (for sailors sometimes go aloft in a transition state), whether it was thus with the man, there is now no telling; but, be that as it may, he had not been long at his perch, when a cry was heard--a cry and a rushing--and looking up, they saw a falling phantom in the air; and looking down, a little tossed heap of white bubbles in the blue of the sea.
Like noiseless nautilus shells, their light prows sped through the sea; but only slowly they neared the foe. As they neared him, the ocean grew still more smooth; seemed drawing a carpet over its waves; seemed a noon-meadow, so serenely it spread. At length the breathless hunter came so nigh his seemingly unsuspecting prey, that his entire dazzling hump was distinctly visible, sliding along the sea as if an isolated thing, and continually set in a revolving ring of finest, fleecy, greenish foam. He saw the vast, involved wrinkles of the slightly projecting head beyond. Before it, far out on the soft Turkish-rugged waters, went the glistening white shadow from his broad, milky forehead, a musical rippling playfully accompanying the shade; and behind, the blue waters interchangeably flowed over into the moving valley of his steady wake; and on either hand bright bubbles arose and danced by his side. But these were broken again by the light toes of hundreds of gay fowl softly feathering the sea, alternate with their fitful flight; and like to some flag-staff rising from the painted hull of an argosy, the tall but shattered pole of a recent lance projected from the white whale's back; and at intervals one of the cloud of soft-toed fowls hovering, and to and fro skimming like a canopy over the fish, silently perched and rocked on this pole, the long tail feathers streaming like pennons.
We'll drink to-night with hearts as light, To love, as gay and fleeting As bubbles that swim, on the beaker's brim, And break on the lips while meeting.
All four boats were now in keen pursuit of that one spot of troubled water and air. But it bade fair to outstrip them; it flew on and on, as a mass of interblending bubbles borne down a rapid stream from the hills.
But the suddenly started Pequod was not quick enough to escape the sound of the splash that the corpse soon made as it struck the sea; not so quick, indeed, but that some of the flying bubbles might have sprinkled her hull with their ghostly baptism.
The sun was only just appearing from behind the clouds, the air was fresh and dewy. A herd of cattle was being driven along the road from the village, and over the fields the larks rose trilling, one after another, like bubbles rising in water.
It was while gliding through these latter waters that one serene and moonlight night, when all the waves rolled by like scrolls of silver; and, by their soft, suffusing seethings, made what seemed a silvery silence, not a solitude; on such a silent night a silvery jet was seen far in advance of the white bubbles at the bow. Lit up by the moon, it looked celestial; seemed some plumed and glittering god uprising from the sea. Fedallah first descried this jet. For of these moonlight nights, it was his wont to mount to the main-mast head, and stand a look-out there, with the same precision as if it had been day. And yet, though herds of whales were seen by night, not one whaleman in a hundred would venture a lowering for them. You may think with what emotions, then, the seamen beheld this old Oriental perched aloft at such unusual hours; his turban and the moon, companions in one sky. But when, after spending his uniform interval there for several successive nights without uttering a single sound; when, after all this silence, his unearthly voice was heard announcing that silvery, moon-lit jet, every reclining mariner started to his feet as if some winged spirit had lighted in the rigging, and hailed the mortal crew. "There she blows!" Had the trump of judgment blown, they could not have quivered more; yet still they felt no terror; rather pleasure. For though it was a most unwonted hour, yet so impressive was the cry, and so deliriously exciting, that almost every soul on board instinctively desired a lowering.
Suddenly bubbles seemed bursting beneath my closed eyes; like vices my hands grasped the shrouds; some invisible, gracious agency preserved me; with a shock I came back to life. And lo! close under our lee, not forty fathoms off, a gigantic Sperm Whale lay rolling in the water like the capsized hull of a frigate, his broad, glossy back, of an Ethiopian hue, glistening in the sun's rays like a mirror. But lazily undulating in the trough of the sea, and ever and anon tranquilly spouting his vapoury jet, the whale looked like a portly burgher smoking his pipe of a warm afternoon. But that pipe, poor whale, was thy last. As if struck by some enchanter's wand, the sleepy ship and every sleeper in it all at once started into wakefulness; and more than a score of voices from all parts of the vessel, simultaneously with the three notes from aloft, shouted forth the accustomed cry, as the great fish slowly and regularly spouted the sparkling brine into the air.
HILTON, WILLIAM (1786-1839), English painter, was born in Lincoln on the 3rd of June 1786, son of a portrait-painter. In 1800 he was placed with the engraver J. R. Smith, and about the same time began studying in the Royal Academy school. He first exhibited in this institution in 1803, sending a "Group of Banditti"; and he soon established a reputation for choice of subject, and qualities of design and colour superior to the great mass of his contemporaries. He made a tour in Italy with Thomas Phillips, the portrait-painter. In 1813, having exhibited "Miranda and Ferdinand with the Logs of Wood," he was elected an associate of the Academy, and in 1820 a full academician, his diploma-picture representing "Ganymede." In 1823 he produced "Christ crowned with Thorns," a large and important work, subsequently bought out of the Chantrey Fund; this may be regarded as his masterpiece. In 1827 he succeeded Henry Thomson as keeper of the Academy. He died in London on the 30th of December 1839, Some of his best pictures remained on his hands at his decease--such as the "Angel releasing Peter from Prison" (life-size), painted in 1831, "Una with the Lion entering Corceca's Cave" (1832), the "Murder of the Innocents," his last exhibited work (1838), "Comus," and "Amphitrite." The National Gallery now owns "Edith finding the Body of Harold" (1834), "Cupid Disarmed," "Rebecca and Abraham's Servant" (1829), "Nature blowing Bubbles for her Children" (1821), and "Sir Calepine rescuing Serena" (from the _Faerie Queen_) (1831). In the National Portrait Gallery is his likeness of John Keats, with whom he was acquainted. In a great school or period Hilton could not count as more than a respectable subordinate; but in the British school of the earlier part of the 19th century he had sufficient elevation of aim and width of attainment to stand conspicuous. Entry: HILTON
ARCELLA (C.G. Ehrenberg), a genus of lobose Rhizopoda, characterized by a chitinous plano-convex shell, the circular aperture central on the flat ventral face, and more than one nucleus and contractile vacuole. It can develop vacuoles, or rather fine bubbles of carbonic acid gas in its cytoplasm, to float up to the surface of the water. Entry: ARCELLA
BOURSSE, ESAIAS (1630-1673), Dutch painter, was born in Amsterdam. He was a follower of Pieter de Hooch, in whose manner he worked for many years in his native town; then he took service with the Dutch East India Company, and died on a sea voyage. His paintings are exceedingly rare, perhaps because, in spite of their greater freedom and breadth, many of them pass under the names of Vermeer of Delft and Pieter de Hooch. Two of the paintings ascribed to the latter (one bears the false signature) at the Ryks museum in Amsterdam, are now recognized as being the work of Boursse. His subjects are interiors with figures, painted with great precision and with exquisite quality of colour. The Wallace collection has his masterpiece, an interior with a woman and a child in a cradle, almost as brilliant as on the day it was painted, and reflecting something of the feeling of Rembrandt, by whom he was influenced. Other important examples are at the Ryks museum and at Aix-la-Chapelle. Boursse's "Boy blowing Soap Bubbles," in the Berlin museum, was until lately attributed to Vermeer of Delft. More than one picture bearing the false signature of Boursse have been publicly shown of late years. Entry: BOURSSE
2. The architectural use of glazed bricks and slabs. While the Egyptians remained content for the most part with the application of their brilliant alkaline glazes to small and delicately-finished objects, the Babylonians and Assyrians developed an architecture decorated with glazed and coloured brickwork. The bricks were of very open texture, and the ornamental pattern or figure subjects were obtained by a strong outline in dark-coloured clay which formed a kind of _cloison_ or boundary, the shallow cells between being filled in with coloured clays--yellow, red or white--or with coloured glazes of turquoise, green or blue, yellow and purplish brown. These glazes are obviously like the Egyptian, but they are more coarsely prepared and are always full of bubbles and consequently more or less opaque. Yet the severe simplicity of the method, the splendid colour effect, strong yet sumptuous, entitles these productions to a very high rank among all the world's work in clay and glaze. The "Frieze of the Archers" now in the Louvre may be mentioned as one of the finest productions of its kind, and the Louvre and British Museum possess the finest collections of this early architectural use of glazed and coloured clay. (See also MURAL DECORATION ) Entry: 2
LIMESTONE, in petrography, a rock consisting essentially of carbonate of lime. The group includes many varieties, some of which are very distinct; but the whole group has certain properties in common, arising from the chemical composition and mineral character of its members. All limestones dissolve readily in cold dilute acids, giving off bubbles of carbonic acid. Citric or acetic acid will effect this change, though the mineral acids are more commonly employed. Limestones, when pure, are soft rocks readily scratched with a knife-blade or the edge of a coin, their hardness being 3; but unless they are earthy or incoherent, like chalk or sinter, they do not disintegrate by pressure with the fingers and cannot be scratched with the finger nail. When free from impurities limestones are white, but they generally contain small quantities of other minerals than calcite which affect their colour. Many limestones are yellowish or creamy, especially those which contain a little iron oxide, iron carbonate or clay. Others are bluish from the presence of iron sulphide, or pyrites or marcasite; or grey and black from admixture with carbonaceous or bituminous substances. Red limestones usually contain haematite; in green limestones there may be glauconite or chlorite. In crystalline limestones or marbles many silicates may occur producing varied colours, e.g. epidote, chlorite, augite (green); vesuvianite and garnet (brown and red); graphite, spinels (black and grey); epidote, chondrodite (yellow). The specific gravity of limestones ranges from 2.6 to 2.8 in typical examples. Entry: LIMESTONE
HARVEY, SIR GEORGE (1806-1876), Scottish painter, the son of a watchmaker, was born at St Ninians, near Stirling, in February 1806. Soon after his birth his parents removed to Stirling, where George was apprenticed to a bookseller. His love for art having, however, become very decided, in his eighteenth year he entered the Trustees' Academy at Edinburgh. Here he so distinguished himself that in 1826 he was invited by the Scottish artists, who had resolved to found a Scottish academy, to join it as an associate. Harvey's first picture, "A Village School," was exhibited in 1826 at the Edinburgh Institution; and from the time of the opening of the Academy in the following year he continued annually to exhibit. His best-known pictures are those depicting historical episodes in religious history from a puritan or evangelical point of view, such as "Covenanters Preaching," "Covenanters' Communion," "John Bunyan and his Blind Daughter," "Sabbath Evening," and the "Quitting of the Manse." He was, however, equally popular in Scotland for subjects not directly religious; and "The Bowlers," "A Highland Funeral," "The Curlers," "A Schule Skailin'," and "Children Blowing Bubbles in the Churchyard of Greyfriars', Edinburgh," manifest the same close observation of character, artistic conception and conscientious elaboration of details. In "The Night Mail" and "Dawn Revealing the New World to Columbus" the aspects of nature are made use of in different ways, but with equal happiness, to lend impressiveness and solemnity to human concerns. He also painted landscapes and portraits. In 1829 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Scottish Academy; in 1864 he succeeded Sir J. W. Gordon as president; and he was knighted in 1867. He died at Edinburgh on the 22nd of January 1876. Entry: HARVEY
The glass to be used for the production of plate is universally melted in pots or crucibles and not in open tank furnaces. When the glass is completely melted and "fine," i.e. free from bubbles, it is allowed to cool down to a certain extent so as to become viscous or pasty. The whole pot, with its contents of viscous glass, is then removed bodily from the furnace by means of huge tongs and is transported to a crane, which grips the pot, raises it, and ultimately tips it over so as to pour the glass upon the slab of the rolling-table. In most modern works the greater part of these operations, as well as the actual rolling of the glass, is carried out by mechanical means, steam power and subsequently electrical power having been successfully applied to this purpose; the handling of the great weights of glass required for the largest sheets of plate-glass which are produced at the present time would, indeed, be impossible without the aid of machinery. The casting-table usually consists of a perfectly smooth cast-iron slab, frequently built up of a number of pieces carefully fitted together, mounted upon a low, massive truck running upon rails, so that it can be readily moved to any desired position in the casting-room. The viscous mass having been thrown on the casting-table, a large and heavy roller passes over it and spreads it out into a sheet. Rollers up to 5 tons in weight are employed and are now generally driven by power. The width of the sheet or plate is regulated by moving guides which are placed in front of the roller and are pushed along by it, while its thickness is regulated by raising or lowering the roller relatively to the surface of the table. Since the surfaces produced by rolling have subsequently to be ground and polished, it is essential that the glass should leave the rolling-table with as smooth a surface as possible, so that great care is required in this part of the process. It is, however, equally important that the glass as a whole should be flat and remains flat during the process of gradual cooling (annealing), otherwise great thicknesses of glass would have to be ground away at the projecting parts of the sheet. The annealing process is therefore carried out in a manner differing essentially from that in use for any other variety of flat glass and nearly resembling that used for optical glass. The rolled sheet is left on the casting-table until it has set sufficiently to be pushed over a flat iron plate without risk of distortion; meanwhile the table has been placed in front of the opening of one of the large annealing kilns and the slab of glass is carefully pushed into the kiln. The annealing kilns are large fire-brick chambers of small height but with sufficient floor area to accommodate four or six large slabs, and the slabs are placed directly upon the floor of the kiln, which is built up of carefully dressed blocks of burnt fireclay resting upon a bed of sand; in order to avoid any risk of working or buckling in this floor these blocks are set slightly apart and thus have room to expand freely when heated. Before the glass is introduced, the annealing kiln is heated to dull red by means of coal fires in grates which are provided at the ends or sides of the kiln for that purpose. When the floor of the kiln has been covered with slabs of glass the opening is carefully built up and luted with fire-bricks and fire-clay, and the whole is then allowed to cool. In the walls and floor of the kiln special cooling channels or air passages are provided and by gradually opening these to atmospheric circulation the cooling is considerably accelerated while a very even distribution of temperature is obtained; by these means even the largest slabs can now be cooled in three or four days and are nevertheless sufficiently well annealed to be free from any serious internal stress. From the annealing kiln the slabs of glass are transported to the cutting room, where they are cut square, defective slabs being rejected or cut down to smaller sizes. The glass at this stage has a comparatively dull surface and this must now be replaced by that brilliant and perfectly polished surface which is the chief beauty of this variety of glass. The first step in this process is that of grinding the surface down until all projections are removed and a close approximation to a perfect plane is obtained. This operation, like all the subsequent steps in the polishing of the glass, is carried out by powerful machinery. By means of a rotating table either two surfaces of glass, or one surface of glass and one of cast iron, are rubbed together with the interposition of a powerful abrasive such as sand, emery or carborundum. The machinery by which this is done has undergone numerous modifications and improvements, all tending to produce more perfectly plane glass, to reduce the risk of breakage, and to lessen the expenditure of time and power required per sq. yd. of glass to be worked. It is impossible to describe this machinery within the limits of this article, but it is notable that the principal difficulties to be overcome arise from the necessity of providing the glass with a perfectly continuous and unyielding support to which it can be firmly attached but from which it can be detached without undue difficulty. Entry: III
Subfam. 3. Shells gelatinous; those of the colony aggregated into a floating spheroidal mass several inches in diameter _Ophrydium_ Bory, _O. versatile_ contains _Zoochlorella_, which secretes oxygen, and the gas-bubbles float the colonies like green lumps of jelly. Entry: 6
_Water-retting._--For this--the process by which flax is generally prepared--pure soft water, free from iron and other materials which might colour the fibre, is essential. Any water much impregnated with lime is also specially objectionable. The dams or ponds in which the operation is conducted are of variable size, and usually between 4 and 5 ft. in depth. The rippled stalks are tied in small bundles and packed, roots downwards, in the dams till they are quite full; over the top of the upper layer is placed a stratum of rushes and straw, or sods with the grassy side downwards, and above all stones of sufficient weight to keep the flax submerged. Under favourable circumstances a process of fermentation should immediately be set up, which soon makes itself manifest by the evolution of gaseous bubbles. After a few days the fermentation subsides; and generally in from ten days to two weeks the process ought to be complete. The exact time, however, depends upon the weather and upon the particular kind of water in which the flax is immersed. The immersion itself is a simple matter; the difficulty lies in deciding when the process is complete. If allowed to remain under water too long, the fibre is weakened by what is termed "over-retting," a condition which increases the amount of codilla in the scutching process; whilst "under-retting" leaves part of the gummy or resinous matter in the material, which hinders the subsequent process of manufacture. As the steeping is such a critical operation, it is essential that the stalks be frequently examined and tested as the process nears completion. When it is found that the fibre separates readily from the woody "shove" or core, the beets or small bundles are ready for removing from the dams. It is drained, and then spread, evenly and equally, over a grassy meadow to dry. The drying, which takes from a week to a fortnight, must be uniform, so that all the fibres may spin equally well. To secure this uniformity, it is necessary to turn the material over several times during the process. It is ready for gathering when the core cracks and separates easily from the fibre. At this point advantage is taken of fine dry weather to gather up the flax, which is now ready for scutching, but the fibre is improved by stooking and stacking it for some time before it is taken to the scutching mill. Entry: FLAX
2. The method of "hydrostatic weighing" is one of the most important. The principle may be thus stated: the solid is weighed in air, and then in water. If W be the weight in air, and W_1 the weight in water, then W_1 is always less than W, the difference W - W_1 representing the weight of the water displaced, i.e. the weight of a volume of water equal to that of the solid. Hence W/(W - W_1) is the relative density or specific gravity of the body. The principle is readily adapted to the determination of the relative densities of two liquids, for it is obvious that if W be the weight of a solid body in air, W_1 and W_2 its weights when immersed in the liquids, then W - W_1 and W - W_2 are the weights of equal volumes of the liquids, and therefore the relative density is the quotient (W - W_1)/(W - W_2). The determination in the case of solids lighter than water is effected by the introduction of a sinker, i.e. a body which when affixed to the light solid causes it to sink. If W be the weight of the experimental solid in air, w the weight of the sinker in water, and W_1 the weight of the solid plus sinker in water, then the relative density is given by W/(W + w - W_1). In practice the solid or plummet is suspended from the balance arm by a fibre--silk, platinum, &c.--and carefully weighed. A small stool is then placed over the balance pan, and on this is placed a beaker of distilled water so that the solid is totally immersed. Some balances are provided with a "specific gravity pan," i.e. a pan with short suspending arms, provided with a hook at the bottom to which the fibre may be attached; when this is so, the stool is unnecessary. Any air bubbles are removed from the surface of the body by brushing with a camel-hair brush; if the solid be of a porous nature it is desirable to boil it for some time in water, thus expelling the air from its interstices. The weighing is conducted in the usual way by vibrations, except when the weight be small; it is then advisable to bring the pointer to zero, an operation rendered necessary by the damping due to the adhesion of water to the fibre. The temperature and pressure of the air and water must also be taken. Entry: 2