Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small]
[blocks in formation]

CHIVA'SSO, a small city of Piedmont, Northern | they are held in the utmost contempt and detestItaly, situated in a fertile plain on the left bank of the Po, about 15 miles north-east of Turin. It was formerly a place of considerable military importance, but its fortifications were destroyed in 1804 by the French. The lampreys of C. are celebrated throughout Piedmont. It has manufactures of bricks, earthenware, soap, &c., and a trade in the agricultural produce of the district. Pop. about 8000.

CHIVE, or CIVE (Allium schoeno'prasum), a plant of the same genus with the leek and onion (see ALLIUM), a perennial, 1 foot in height, with very small, flat, clustered bulbs, increasing by

its bulbs so as to form a sort of turf. The leaves are tubular, cylindrical-tapering, radical, nearly as long as the almost leafless flowering-stem, which is terminated by a hemispherical, many flowered, not bulbiferous umbel of bluish red, or, more rarely, flesh-coloured flowers. The stamens are included within the perianth. This rather pretty little plant grows wild on the banks of rivers, and in marshy or occasionally flooded places in the middle latitudes of Europe and Asia. It is a rare native of Britain. In some of the mountainous districts of Europe a variety is found, larger and stronger in all its parts, and with flowering-stems more leafy. Chives-the name is generally used in the plural-are commonly cultivated in kitchen-gardens, often as an edging for plots, and are used for flavouring soups and dishes. Their properties are very similar to those of the onion. The part used is the young leaves, which bear repeated cuttings in the season.

CHIZEROTS AND BURINS form one of those peculiar races in France that live isolated in the midst of the rest of the population, and are despised and hated by their neighbours. They live in the arrondissement of Bourg-en-Bresse, in the depart ment of Ain; and the communes of Sermoyer, Arbigny, Boz, and Ozan belong to them. According to tradition, they are descended from the Saracens. Although industrious and prosperous,

ation by their peasant neighbours, who are often indolent and destitute. They are looked upon as covetous and malicious, and scarcely would the daughter of a small farmer, or well-to-do daylabourer, become the wife of one of them, so that they mostly marry among themselves. From time immemorial, the C. and B. have been field-labourers, cattle-dealers, butchers, &c. Many of them are very good-looking. The young women are handsome, clear-complexioned, with large black eyes. Michel, Histoire des Races Maudites de la France et de l'Espagne (2 vols. Par. 1847).

See

CHLADNI, ERNST FLORENS FRIEDRICH, founder of the science of acoustics, was born at Wittenberg, November 30, 1756. He studied law in his native place, and also in Leipsic, where, in 1782, he was made Doctor of Laws. C. ultimately abandoned juridical studies altogether, devoted his mind to natural science, and, being acquainted with music, was led to observe that the laws of sound were by no means so well established as those of other branches of physics. He therefore began to apply his knowledge of mathematics and physics to acoustics, and travelled for ten years (after 1802) through Germany, Holland, France, Italy, Russia, and Denmark, giving lectures on the subject, which were very successful. He died in Breslau, April 3, 1827.-C.'s writings include, Discoveries concerning the Theory of Sound (1787), Acoustics (1802), New Contributions to Acoustics (1817), and Contributions to Practical Acoustics, with Remarks on the making of Instruments (1822). C. also wrote several essays on meteoric stones.

CHLAMYPHORUS (Gr. chlamys-bearing; chlamys, a soldier's cloak), a very remarkable genus of mammalia of the order Edentata, ranked by naturalists in the same family with the armadillos, but differing in important respects from them, and from all other known quadrupeds. Only one species is known, C. truncatus, five or six inches long, a

CHLOPICKI-CHLORIMETRY.

native of the interior of Chili, living underground like the mole, which it much resembles in its habits, and feeding on the same kind of food. Its fore-feet are adapted for digging, although in a different manner from those of the mole. The skull is

destitute of sutures; there are resemblances to the

Chlamyphorus.

osteology of birds in the ribs and their union to the sternum; the hinder part of the body is altogether unlike that of any other known animal, in its terminating quite abruptly, as if cut off almost where its thickness is greatest, or as if the back were suddenly bent down at right angles, the tail not springing from where the line of the back appears to terminate, but far below. The whole upper and hinder parts of the body are covered with a coat of mail, made up of a series of square plates; the under parts and legs are covered with long silky hair. The tail is very peculiar ; it is covered with small scales, is expanded at the tip, and is usually incurved along the belly, but is furnished with such muscles as to suggest the probability of its being employed to throw back the

earth in excavations.

CHLOPICKI, JOSEPH, a Polish general, and Dictator of Poland during the revolution of 1830, was born in Galicia in 1772. He entered the army in 1787, attracted the notice of Kosciusko during the first insurrection of the Poles, and after the storming of Praga, 9th November 1794, when the hopes of the patriots were extinguished for awhile, he passed into the service of the new Cisalpine Republic, and distinguished himself in various battles. In 1806 when Bonaparte called the Poles to arms, C., among others, obeyed, and fought gallantly at Eylau and Friedland. He was subsequently sent by the emperor into Spain, and in 1812 followed him to Russia, taking part in the bloody engagements at Smolensk and Moskwa. After the relics of the invading force had returned, C. left the imperial service, on account of receiving certain slights in the way of his professional advancement. After the taking of Paris by the allies in 1814, he led back to Poland the remains of the Polish troops who had fought under Bonaparte, and was well received by the Emperor Alexander, who made him a general of division. When the second insurrection of the Poles broke out in 1830, C., who foresaw the hopeless nature of the attempt, concealed himself; but the voice of the nation called him forth from his hiding-place, and on the 5th December 1830, he was elected dictator. His moderate views, however, involved him in disputes with the extreme patriotic party, and on the 23d January 1831, he resigned his office; but, to prove his sincerity, he entered the Polish army as a simple soldier, and took part in the murderous battles at Wavre and Grochow. After the suppression of the insurrection, C. went to

[blocks in formation]

CHLORANTHA'CEÆ, a natural order of exogenons plants, closely allied to the peppers; herbaceous and half-shrubby plants, with jointed stems, opposite simple leaves, and minute stipules between them. The flowers are in terminal spikes, and are destitute of calyx and corolla, but have each a small scale or bract. The stamens are lateral; either only one or few, and partly cohering. The ovary is one-celled, immediately crowned with the stigma; the ovule is pendulous; the fruit a drupe or one-seeded berry; the embryo naked, not in a fleshy sac as in the peppers.-The number of known species is small: all of them are tropical, or natives of China and Japan. They are generally aromatic, and some of them, as species of Chloranthus in the East Indies, and of Hedyosmum in the West Indies and South America, are used as antispasmodics, stimulants, stomachics, and tonics. The roots of Chloranthus officinalis and C. brachystachys have been ranked among the most efficacious remedies in fevers and other diseases requiring continual and active stimulants, and instances have occurred of great benefit from their employment during the prevalence of epidemics in Java. C. inconspicuus is the CHU-LAN of the Chinese; its leaves, spikes of flowers, and berries are used by them for imparting a peculiar fragrance to tea. All the teas which have what is called the cowslip flavour owe it to this plant.

atom of chlorine and five atoms of oxygen, and CHLO'RIC ACID (CIO) is a compound of one is generally met with in combination with potash, as the white crystalline salt, chlorate of potash (KO,CIO). This salt is mainly interesting from the readiness with which it parts with its oxygen to combustibles, as when thrown on red-hot charcoal, when it causes violent deflagration. The salt is employed in the fabrication of certain kinds of lucifer-matches, which give a slight explosion when struck. If a crystal of chlorate of potash be placed on a piece of paper saturated with turpentine, and a drop or two of oil of vitriol added, it causes the inflaming of the turpentine with explosive rapidity. The chlorate of potash is also used in medicine, with the view of imparting oxygen to the blood.

CHLORIMETRY, or CHLORO'METRY, is the process of estimating the proportion of available chlorine in bleaching powder (q. v.), which may vary from 20 to 36 per cent. The process depends upon the great power with which chlorine, in the act of being liberated from its compounds, causes the oxidation of many substances. The salt generally used is pure crystallised sulphate of iron, which, in its ordinary state, gives a deep blue colour, with a drop of ferrideyanide of potassium, but ceases to do so when it has been fully oxidised, or converted from a proto-salt into a per-salt, through the influence of chlorine. It being known that 78 grains or parts of sulphate of iron are oxidised by 10 grains or parts of chlorine, the mode of procedure in C. is as follows: 78 grains of fine crystals of the sulphate of iron are dissolved in water slightly acidulated with hydrochloric acid in a white porcelain basin. A given quantity of the bleaching powder-say 50 grains-is dissolved in a little tepid water, and introduced into a tall measure-glass called a chlorimeter or burette (figs. 1, 2, and 3), similar to an alkalimeter, which is divided

[graphic]

10

20

30

CHLORINE-CHLOROFORM.

into 100 parts, and water added till the solution rises to the top mark. After subsidence of the insoluble matter, the clear solution is very gradually poured into the solution of sulphate of iron in the basin, the O whole being kept conostantly stirred, and every now and again a drop of 20 the iron solution is taken 30 out and placed on a new drop of ferridcyanide of 40 potassium placed on a 50 white plate; and whenever the iron solution 60 ceases to produce a deep 70 blue, and only forms a light greenish-yellow tint, it is known that the iron 90 has been fully oxidised by the chlorine. Suppose that at this stage the burette has been emptied to the 55th division; as we know that the liquid poured out must have contained 10 grains of chlorine, we can calculate the chlorine contained in the whole; for 55 10:100: 18·18.

20

30

40

140

50

50

60

60

170

70

80

[ocr errors]

90

00

[blocks in formation]

80

Thus 50 grains of the powder contain 18:18 grains of chlorine, or 36-36 per cent. Protochloride of manganese, subchloride of mercury (calomel), or a solution of indigo of known strength, may be employed instead of the sulphate of iron; but the latter is preferable, and is generally employed by chemists and manufacturers.

CHLORINE (Gr. chloros, pale green) is a nonmetallic element discovered by Scheele in 1774, and named by him dephlogisticated marine air. Afterwards, in 1810, Davy proved it to be an elementary body, and gave it the name which it now bears. In nature it is always found in a state of combination. United with sodium (Na), it occurs very largely as the chloride of sodium (NaCl)- -common salt in the ocean; in large beds, as rock-salt; in all natural waters, including even rain-water; in clays, soils, limestone; in volcanic incrustations; and in the vegetable and animal kingdoms. The preparation of gaseous C. by its liberation, directly or indirectly, from common salt, has been fully described under BLEACHING POWDER, which is the form in which C. is prepared and employed commercially. For experimental purposes, the gas may be received in jars filled with water at the pneumatic trough, when the C. rises into the jar, and displaces the water. When thus obtained, it is a yellowish-green gas with a peculiar and suffocating odour, is not combustible, and a very feeble supporter of ordinary combustion. A lighted candle placed in it burns with a very smoky flame, owing to the hydrogen of the oil alone burning, and the carbon being liberated. Several of the metals, such as antimony, copper, and arsenic, in a fine state of division, or in the condition of thin leaves, at once become red hot, and burn when introduced into the gas. A piece of thin paper soaked in turpentine likewise bursts into flame. C. has the symbol Cl, and the atomic weight or equivalent of 35 5. It is a very heavy gas, nearly 2 times heavier than air, its specific gravity being 2470 (air 1000); it is soluble in cold water to the extent of two volumes of C. in one of water, and yields a solution resembling the gas in colour, odour, and other properties. The principal properties of C. are those of a bleacher of cotton and linen (see BLEACHING), and a most

powerful disinfectant (q. v.). The gas can be condensed by pressure and cold into a transparent dark greenish-yellow limpid liquid, with a specific gravity of 1330 (HO= 1000), which also possesses bleaching properties, and a most powerful odour. On the animal system C. acts, in very minute quantity, by producing a sensation of warmth in the respiratory passages, and increasing the expectoration; in large quantity, by causing spasm of the glottis, violent cough, and a feeling of suffocation. The workmen in chemical manufactories, who get accustomed to the C. in small quantity, are generally stout-at least, lay on fat-but complain of acidity in the stomach, which they correct by taking chalk, and also suffer from the corrosion of their teeth, which are eaten away to stumps. The antidotes to the evil effects of the introduction of C. into the lungs are the inhalation of the vapour of water, alcohol, ether, or chloroform; but the two latter should never be resorted to except under medical supervision.

C. unites with the metals and many other substances to form an extensive class of salts known as chlorides.

CHLO'RITE (Gr. chloros, green), an abundant mineral, consisting of silica, alumina, magnesia, and protoxide of iron, in somewhat variable proportions. It is of a green colour, rarely occurs crystallised in hexagonal crystals, sometimes foliated like talc. It is rather soft, and is easily broken or scratched with a knife. Before the blowpipe, it is with difficulty fused on thin edges. It is readily distinguished from tale by yielding water in a closed tube.

CHLO'RITE-SCHIST, or CHLORITE-SLATE, a green slaty rock, in which chlorite is abundant in foliated plates, usually blended with minute grains of quartz, and sometimes with felspar or mica. It belongs to the metamorphic rocks, and is often found graduating into gneiss and clay-slate.

CHLO'ROFORM, or the TERCHLOʻRIDE OF FO'RMYLE (C2HCl), was originally discovered by Soubeiran, and experimented upon by Dumas, and was long known only to scientific chemists as a rare organic body, possessing interest from being one of a series of organic substances, but not known to possess any properties likely to call it into use, or even likely to let it be known by name to the general public. The remarkable power, however, which it possesses of producing anesthesia, has led to the preparation of C. on a very extensive scale. The materials employed are alcohol, water, and bleaching powder, and the proportions are four parts of bleaching powder, to which sufficient water is added to make a thin paste, and thereafter one part of spirits of wine; the whole is introduced into a capacious retort, which must not be more than half filled, and heat being applied, the C., accompanied by water and a little alcohol, distils over. As the C. is heavier than water, and is not readily miscible therewith, two layers of liquid are obtained in the receiver-the upper being water and alcohol, and the lower being chloroform. The upper liquid being cautiously poured off, the C. is agitated with fused carbonate of potash, which abstracts the remaining traces of water, and on subsequent redistillation the C. is obtained pure and ready for use.

C. is a highly limpid, mobile, colourless liquid, which is very volatile, has a characteristic and pleasant odour, and an agreeable sweetish taste. It has a specific gravity of nearly 1500 (water = 1000), being thus half as heavy again as water, and boils at 140° F. It is not inflammable in the ordinary sense of the term, as it will not take fire

CHLOROPHYLL-CHOIR.

when a light is brought down upon it; but when thrown on red-hot coals, it burns with a green flame, evolving much smoke. It is slightly soluble in water, but more readily mixes with alcohol and ether. It dissolves camphor, amber, copal, and other resins, wax, caoutchouc, black and red sealing wax, iodine and bromine, as well as strychnine and other alkaloids. Its purity may be determined by placing some on the palm of the hand, and allowing it to evaporate, when no alcoholic or other odorous substance should be even momentarily recognised; and by agitation with oil of vitriol, when, on settling, the C. should readily swim on the surface of the vitriol, and the two layers of liquid remain colourless. The employment of C. as an anesthetic has already been considered under ANASTHESIA; but it may be here repeated, that C. is a substance that cannot be too cautiously dealt with, and that it should never be administered except in the presence and by the sanction of a medical practitioner. When skilfully given, it is the safest of all anesthetics, and the greatest boon that chemistry has bestowed on suffering

humanity.

perish from it, or are much diminished in value. Fruit-trees also suffer from it.

CHOCARD, or CHOQUARD (Pyrrhocorax), a genus of birds of the Crow family (Corvida), differing from the Choughs in having a shorter bill, which, however, is arched like theirs, but resembling them in their habits. The only European species is the Alpine C., also called Alpine Chough, and Alpine Crow (P. Pyrrhocorax). It is about the size of a jackdaw, of a brilliant black, with yellowish bill and red feet.

CHOCKS are pieces of wood employed on ship-board to aid in the support of various articles. Amongst them are anchor-chocks, rudder-chocks, boat-chocks, stow-wood chocks, and chocks to support the ends of the beams.

CHO'CO, a bay and province of New Granada, in South America.-1. The bay, forming part of the Gulf of Darien, receives the Atrato (q. v.), a stream of note in connection with inter-oceanic communication. Its lat. and long, are about 3° 30′ N., portion of the department of Cauca (q. v.). and 77° 30′ W.-2. The province forms the west

CHO'COLATE is made from the seeds of TheoCHLOROPHYLL (Gr. chloros, green, and broma Cacao (see Cocoa), reduced to a fine paste in phyllon, a leaf), the substance to which the leaves a heated iron mortar, or by a machine, and mixed and other parts of plants owe their green colour. with pounded sugar and spices, as cinnamon, cloves, It is somewhat analogous to wax, is soluble in cardamom, vanilla, &c. The paste is then poured alcohol and ether, but insoluble in water, and floats into moulds of white iron, in which it is allowed to in the fluid of the cells, in the form of minute cool and harden. C. is sometimes made without granules. Light is indispensable to its formation, spices, but is then more generally called Cocoa. and hence arises the familiar phenomenon of Blanch- The paste is sometimes mixed with flour, and with ing (q. v.), either from accidental causes, or by the Carrageen or with Iceland Moss; and for medicinal art of the gardener. Young leaves do not exhibit purposes with cinchona, &c. C. is used as a beverage, so deep a green as those which have been longer and for this purpose is dissolved in hot water or exposed to the light; and the green of a leaf gener-milk. Sometimes the yolk of an egg is added, and ally deepens till it begins to change into the tints of sometimes it is dissolved in soup or wine. It is also autumn. Hydra viridis, and other minute animals, employed in making certain liqueurs. In a pure state, appear to owe their green colour to a substance it soon satisfies the appetite, and is very nourishing; analogous to chlorophyll. when it contains spices, it is also stimulating. Good C. is externally smooth, firm, and shiningnot gritty in the fracture-casily soluble, aromatic; not viscid after having been liquefied and cooled, but oily on the surface, and leaves no sediment of foreign substances. C. is adulterated in many ways, by mixing it with rice-meal, oatmeal, flour, potato-starch, roasted hazel-nuts or almonds, and with benzoin, storax, &c., in place of vanilla. The Mexicans, from time immemorial, were accustomed to prepare a beverage from roasted and pounded cocoa, dissolved in water, and mixed with maizemeal and spices. This they called Chocolatl (choco, cocoa, and latl, water). From the Americans, the Spaniards derived an acquaintance with C., and by them it was introduced into Europe in 1520. C. is used in South America, Spain, and Italy, more than in other parts of the world, although it is used to a considerable extent in Germany. Its use in Britain has given place in a great measure to that of the simpler cocoa.

CHLO'ROPS. See CORN-FLY and WHEAT-FLY. CHLORO'SIS (Gr. chloros, pale green), a peculiar form of anæmia or bloodlessness, common in young women, and connected with the disorders incident to the critical period of life. It has been called the green sickness, from the peculiar dingy greenish-yellow hue of the complexion; the green colour, however, is not always characteristic. The disease is attended with very great debility, and often with breathlessness, palpitation, and other distressing, or even alarming symptoms. When there is no organic disease present, however, C. may be pronounced curable in a large proportion of cases. The principal means to be employed are air, exercise, often salt-water baths, the use of iron, with a nutritious and rather stimulating diet, and purgatives if required; together with such special remedies as are adapted for restoring deficient secretions, and bringing the entire female system of organs into a natural condition.

CHLORO'SIS, a diseased state of plants, in which a sickly green or greenish-yellow colour takes the place of the natural lively hue. Sometimes only a particular shoot is affected by it, but very generally the whole plant; and it seems to depend upon causes which render the plant altogether unhealthy, the pallid appearance being merely symptomatic, and not only the formation of chlorophyll, but all the functions of vegetable life being languidly and imperfectly carried on. Bad seed, damp soil, and cold wet weather, appear to be the most common causes of chlorosis. Plants affected by this disease are often to be seen among crops generally healthy; but whole crops of grain, potatoes, &c., sometimes

CHOCOLATE ROOT. See GEUM.

CHOIR (Lat. chorus). In its literal sense, the C. is the portion of the church devoted to the singers; and in all descriptions which concern the ritual it is so limited, including only the space from the western door or screen to the end of the stalls, whilst the part from the stalls eastward to the highaltar is called the presbytery. But in ordinary language, and even as used by architects, it denotes the entire space which is enclosed for the performance of the principal part of the service. In this sense, it includes the C. proper and the presbytery, and corresponds to the chancel in parish churches. Where the church is cruciform, and the term is confined to the eastern limb, it comes to be entirely different

« ZurückWeiter »