Dredging is a term applied to the operation of removing mud, silt, and other deposits from the bottom of harbours, canals, rivers, docks, etc. The most simple dredging apparatus is the spoon apparatus, which consists of a strong iron ring or hoop, properly formed for making an impression upon the soft matter at the bottom, so as to scoop it into a large bag attached to the ring and perforated with a number of small holes. The means for working it is a long handle, a suspending rope, and a crane or sweep-pole planted in a boat.
Much more effective was the steam dredging-machine that became common during the 19th century. It had a succession of strong iron buckets on an endless chain, which traversed on a frame whose lower end was vertically adjustable so as to regulate the depth at which it worked. It was worked by steam, and the buckets tore up the matter at the bottom, raised it, and discharge it into punts or hoppers close to the dredging vessel. Various forms of steam - pump dredgers, in which suction-pipes were the chief features, were also used.
The river Clyde, from being a shallow stream, was converted, mainly by dredging, into a waterway carrying large vessels up to Glasgow.
Dredging rivers for gold has been largely carried on since the 19th century; and the gold-dredge may even be floated in water artificially supplied.
Dredging is also the operation of dragging the bottom of the sea for molluscs, plants, and other objects, it may be for scientific observation. The oyster-dredge is a light iron frame with a scraper like a narrow hoe on one side, and a bag attached to receive the oysters. The dredges used by naturalists are mostly modifications of or somewhat similar to the oyster-dredge. Scientific dredging assumed a high importance at the end of the 19th century for research into the life of deep-sea areas, before the invention of deep-sea diving equipment and cameras. Research Dredging
A flying-bridge is a bridge made of pontoons, light boats, hollow beams, casks, or the like. They are made as occasion requires, chiefly for the passage of troops. The term is also applied to a kind of ferry in which the force of the current of a river is applied to propel a boat guided by a cable fastened from the one side to the other. Research Flying Bridge
A hexameter is a verse of six feet, the heroic or epic measure of the Greeks and Romans. The sixth foot is always a spondee (two long syllables) or a trochee (a long and a short). The five first may be all dactyls (two short syllables and one long), or all spondees, or a mixture of both. The scheme of this verse then is with all the varieties which the mingling of the two kinds of feet affords. In modern poetry the hexameter has been frequently used.
In English hexameters accent is almost entirely substituted for length, and trochees generally take the place of spondees. Longfellow in his Evangeline, Kingsley in his Andromeda, and Clough in his Bothie adopted this form of verse. The following lines are specimens of dough's English hexameters: 0 let us
try, he
answered, the waters them
selves will sup
port us,
Yea very
ripples and
waves will
form to a
boat under neath us. Research Hexameter
An iceboat is a boat-like structure on runners, propelled over ice usually by sails. Modern iceboats have a central tube-like hull, a runner plank extending at right angles to the hull and affixed with a runner at either end, and a third runner, placed either forward or aft, serving as a rudder. In ancient times primitive iceboats were used in the Scandinavian region for haulage and transport.
Iceboating remains a mode of travel in some parts of Europe today. The sport of iceboating began on the Shrewsbury River in Red Bank, New Jersey, around 1840. Subsequent innovations made iceboats the fastest vehicles of the early 1900s, with speeds up to 225 kmh. Modern iceboats are about 6 m long and have sail areas of from 7 to 32.5 sq. m. These boats average about 65 to 95 kmh over the usual 32-km course. Recent innovations include the use of air motors and outboard motors that employ a spiked wheel to drive the boat across the ice, and the use of jet propulsion. Research Iceboat
Japanese drama commenced around the 7th century and to date has evolved a wide variety of genres characterised generally by the fusion of dramatic, musical, and dance elements. The music and dance, as well as the subjects, settings, costumes, and acting styles, were rigidly stylised and, until recent times, offered relatively few realistic or naturalistic qualities. Some genres utilise almost exclusively a fixed repertoire of plays, often many centuries old. The earliest known type of Japanese theatrical entertainment is gigaku, which was introduced into Japan in 612 from southern China; it is thought to have been ultimately of Indian or possibly even of Greek origin. Gigaku dances, performed with masks, seem to have been humorous. In the 8th century gigaku fell into disfavour because its frivolous character displeased the Japanese rulers of the period. It was supplanted largely by bugaku, an entertainment introduced from China. Bugaku dances portrayed simple situations such as the return of a general from war.
The performers wore impressive robes, and their dances had exotic splendour. Japanese rulers, intent on imitating Chinese courtetiquette, favoured bugaku, both because of its solemnity and because of its similarity to Chinese court entertainments, and it quickly acquired a ritual character. Bugaku may now be seen only at ceremonies. A type of acrobatic entertainment known as sangaku, transmitted similarly to Japan from the Asian continent and popular in the 8th century, also influenced Japanese drama. Typical acts included tightrope walking, juggling, and sword swallowing. A Combination of these secular entertainments and the sacred dances and songs associated with the Shinto religion gradually evolved into more complex forms of drama. Surviving documents from the 11th century describe comic playlets, and one play still performed, the ritual dance Okina, may date from this period.
Plays were also performed at shrine festivals in support of prayers for harvests or to depict the history of the shrine. The actors and musicians were organised into troupes. By the 14th century the theatre had developed one of its foremost artistic achievements, No drama. These plays included solemn dances intended to suggest the deepest emotions of the principal character and were written in the poetic language of the Japanese classics. A program also often included kyo gen, or farces written in colloquial language. No was brought to the level of great art by the genius of two dramatists, Kanami Kiyotsugu and his son Zeami Motokiyo. No was patronised by the Ashikaga shogunate after a shogun saw the boy Zeami perform in 1374. Zeami developed No into refined aristocratic drama, but after his death it tended to lose its creative vitality and become ritualistic. Many No plays performed at present are by Zeami, and his books of criticism are considered the final authority on the subject.
For a short period after the Meiji restoration in 1868, No was threatened with extinction because of its connections with the discredited shogunate. It survived the threat, however, and thereafter enjoyed popularity with specialised audiences. An entire program of No drama traditionally consists of five No plays in poetry with music and four kyo gen farces in prose without music, performed alternately. Kyogen farces feature representational acting, and the actors wear neither masks nor makeup. No plays avoid representational accuracy in favour of a symbolic treatment of subjects concerning the worlds of the living and the dead. The principal types of No plays are those dealing with deities, the ghosts of warriors, women with tragic destinies, mad persons, and devils or festive spirits. The actors, who often wear masks, are richly and elaborately costumed. The No drama is performed in a theatre with a roofed stage. The audience is seated on two or, less commonly, three sides of the stage. The actors reach the stage by a passageway, called the bridge, which is marked by three pine trees. The only backdrop is a large painted pine. The scenery consists entirely of impressionistic props suggesting the outlines of a building, a boat, or any other object of importance to the play. Only male actors perform in No dramas. When they play the roles of women or of men whose age is markedly different from their own, they wear masks, many of which are exceptionally beautiful. The No drama also includes a chorus that sits at one side of the stage and recites for the actors when they dance, but the chorus has no identity in the drama. Full programs are seldom presented any longer, but kyo gen continues to be an indispensable part of the entire performance, for it presents the humorous aspects of life with which No is never concerned.
At the end of the 15th century two new popular forms appeared; they were the puppet theatre, jo ruri, also called bunraku, and a form known as kabuki. The puppet theatre combines three elements: the puppets; the chanters who sing and declaim for the puppets; and the players of the samisen, a three-stringed instrument, who provide the accompaniment. The greatest Japanese dramatist, Chikamatsu Monzaemon, wrote chiefly for the puppet theatre, the artistic level of which is perhaps higher in Japan than anywhere else in the world. The puppet theatre, after attaining its greatest popularity in the 18th century, lost in public favour to the kabuki, which has continued to be the most popular traditional dramatic genre. By the mid-1980s kabuki was popular with American audiences, and troupes made annual appearances in the USA Kabuki tends to be spectacle rather than drama. Original kabuki texts, as opposed to those adapted from the puppet theatre, are of lesser importance than the remarkable acting, the music and dance, and the brilliantly collared settings.
Kabuki plays are performed in large theatres, with a hanamichi, or raised platform, extending from the back of the theatre to the stage. In addition to the traditional drama, a modern theatrical repertoire consisting of original Japanese plays in a modern idiom and of translations of European plays has been active in Japan since the beginning of the 20th century. Some 20th-century playwrights have attempted to compromise between traditional Japanese forms and essentially Western idioms, either by introducing modern psychology into their treatment of the ancient tales or by making kabuki-style plays out of such European classics as Shakespeare's Macbeth. Highly successful modern presentations of traditional themes are offered in Five Modern No Plays (1956) by Mishima Yukio. Other plays, notably Twilight Crane, produced in 1949, by Kinoshita Junji, are derived from old folktales. Many contemporary Japanese playwrights deal with such themes as conflict in modern Japanese society and problems of social injustice; other playwrights prefer to work out Japanese equivalents of modern symbolic drama or of the American musical comedy. Research Japanese Drama
Araucaria is a genus of Coniferae with evergreen leaves, of a singularly geometric habit of growth, belonging to the southern hemisphere. The species are large trees with pretty large, stiff, flattened, and generally imbricated leaves, verticillate spreading branches, and bearing large cones, each scale having a single large seed. The species best known in Britain is Araucaria imbricdta (popularly known as the Chili pine or puzzle-monkey), which is quite hardy. It is a native of the mountains of southern Chili, where it forms vast forests and yields a hard durable wood. Its seeds are eaten when roasted. The MoretonBaypine of New South Wales (Araucaria Cunninghamii) supplies a valuable timber used in house and boat building, in making furniture, and in other carpenter work. A species, Araucaria excelsa, or Norfolk Island pine abounds in several of the South Sea Islands, where it attains a height of 67 metres with a circumference of 9 meters, and is described as one of the most beautiful of trees. Its foliage is light and graceful, and quite unlike that of Araucaria imbricata, having nothing of of its stiff formality. Its timber is of some value, being white, tough, and close-grained. Research Araucaria
The boatbill (Cochlearius cochlearius), is a heron-like bird of the family Ardeidae so named because it has a short, broad bill resembling an overturned boat. It is about 51 centimetres high, with shorter legs than most herons, and is grey and black in colour. Boatbills inhabit mangrove swamps from Mexico to southern Brazil and is believed to feed on small fish and aquatic animal life; however, because it is a nocturnalbird, little is known of its habits. Research Boatbill
Haliplidae is the crawling water beetles family of insects of the order Coleoptera. They are tiny, boat-shaped insects less than five millimetres long, yellowish or reddish brown in colour with black markings and live among aquatic plants in slow moving or stagnant water, though they are not good swimmers, moving their legs as if walking. They feed on vegetable matter. Research Haliplidae
Hemiptera is an order of four-winged insects, having a suctorial proboscis, the outer wings, or wing-covers, are either entirely formed of a substance intermediate between the elytra of beetles and the ordinary membranous wings of most insects, or leathery at the base and transparent towards the tips (hemelytra). In one group (the Aphides) all the wings when present are membranous. The true wings are straight and unplaited, Some feed on vegetable and some on animal juices. Those having the upper wings of a uniform substance throughout (whether leathery or transparent) have been constituted into a section, and by some naturalists into an order named Homoptera; those having them partly leathery and partly transparent constitute the section or order Heteroptera. To the Hemiptera belong the plant-lice, boat-fly, cochineal insect, locust, bug, lantern-fly, etc. Research Hemiptera
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Dredging
