In ecclesiastical history, the agape was the love-feast or feast of charity, in use among the primitive Christians, when a liberal contribution was made by the rich to feed the poor. During. the three first centuries love-feasts were held in the churches without scandal, but in after-times the heathen began to tax them with impurity, and they were condemned at the Council of Carthage in 397. Some 19th century sects, as the Wesleyans, Sandemanians, Moravians, etc attempted to revive this feast. Research Agape
A cang was a Chinese instrument for the punishment of trifling offences. It was a kind of wooden cage fitting closely around the neck, with the weight proportioned to the nature of the offence, but so constructed that the culprit couldn't lie down nor feed himself. The cang was not removed during the period of punishment which lasted two or three months. Inscribed on the cang was the nature of the offence and the name of the criminal who was generally left exposed at the city gates. Research Cang
Kissing is mouth contact with slightly pursed lips. Kissing and being kissed is pleasant partly because it triggers subconscious memories and instincts of early childhood, of feeding at the mother's breast and of feeding babies.
Deep kissing, in which the mouths are pressed together and the tongues probe within each other's mouths is a popular and common part of pair bonding in human beings and originates, probably, from the way in which mothers fed their young many years ago. In early civilisations mothers would chew food for their toddler and then feed it to them by mouth-to-mouth contact which involved pushing the food into the child's mouth with the tongue, much like birds still feed their young. Psychologically, kissing is a subconscious reminder of this feeding and being fed instinct - it is a relic gesture - and helps pair bonding between lovers. Research Kissing
La Leche League International is an organisation of women who offer information and encouragement to mothers who want to breast-feed their babies. The league provides counselling and education to parents and professionals through meetings, seminars, and publications. Its publications include a book called The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding. The league also distributes brochures on childbirth, child care, and related subjects. It directs group discussions for mothers who are breast-feeding and other interested women. Research La Leche League International More information about La Leche League International
A stamp mill is a machine used for the fine crushing of mineral ore. The stamp mill consists of a cast iron rectangular box provided with a feed slot at the back and screens in the front. A number of stamps consisting of heavy stems with a steelshoe at the bottom work in each box. The stamps are raised by means of cams and falling by gravity crush the ore on the steel dies placed in the bottom of the box. Water flowing through the boxes carries the crushed ore through the screens. Research Stamp Mill
In its narrow, everyday use, vegetable is a word indicating any herb that is cultivated specially for table use in whole or part, such as the turnip (root), cabbage (leaves), broccoli (flowers), peas and beans (fruit). In its widest sense it includes all living things that are not animals - trees, shrubs, herbs, ferns, mosses, seaweeds, fungi, and the microscopic diatoms.
The unit of structure, the cell, is essentially the same in both animals and plants, but the combination of the cells into tissues and organs shows marked differences.
All animals depend for their food upon material originally elaborated by plants. The green plants alone have the power to construct this basic food material from elemental substances, and physiological processes different from those of animal assimilation are rendered necessary. The fungi approach the animals in this respect: they must feed upon material that has already done service as part of the structure of other plants or of animals.
The fine divisions of roots explore the soil in search of water in which are dissolved the salts of sodium, iron, potassium, phosphorus, calcium, sulphur, etc. The hairs with which the rootlets are clothed absorb this fluid by osmosis, and it is passed upward through the long vessels of the wood bundles until it reaches the cells of the leaf. These cells contain green bodies (chloroplasts) in their protoplasm, and it is these that impart the green colour to leaves and soft shoots. In the leaf-skin (epidermis) there are innumerable pores or stomata through which surplus water from the roots is evaporated and through which atmospheric air is admitted to the spaces between the leaf-cells.
The chloroplasts in these cells have the power to utilise solar energy in decomposing the carbon dioxide of the air, and the cells retain the carbon, setting free the oxygen. Water from the roots is broken up also into its elements, hydrogen and oxygen, and with these plus carbonstarch is formed. This, converted into grape sugar, is passed from cell to cell to parts of the plant whore it is needed for the production of new cells, wood, bark, leaves, or fruit. Starch is the material from which are made all the organic substances produced by the plant.
The surplus over present requirements is stored up as reserves in seeds, enlarged roots or stems, bulbs, or tubers for renewed growth or floral display at a later season. Waste products are converted into resins, oils/wax, or alkaloids - many of these being of considerable economic value to man. Part of the water stream from the roots passes by osmosis from cell to cell, where it is necessary in order to keep the protoplasm in an active condition; any insufficiency is followed by a flagging of the tissues, the drooping of leaves and young shoots. In addition to the absorption of carbon by the protoplasts for building purposes, the leaf-cells also take up oxygen from the atmosphere and give off carbon much as animals do.
As the plant respires without lungs and assimilates without digestive organs, so also it can effect movements without a muscular system and react to external stimuli without a nervous system. It is sensitive to light and heat; many plants have distinct night and day positions for their leaves. It responds positively and negatively to the force of gravity, the root going down into the earth and the stem rising into the air. The growing tip of a stem or shoot commonly nutates, i.e. moves from side to side or in a circle or ellipse. The plant can orientate itself, i.e. take up a definite position in regard to the incidence of light or other external stimulus. These movements appear to be controlled largely by alterations in the position of the mobile chloroplasts.
The reproductive process is, in essentials, similar to that of animals, the ovules or seed-eggs in the ovary requiring to be fertilised by male sperms represented by the pollen grains produced in the anthers. The result of such fertilisation is to cause the ovule to develop into an embryo capable of further development under suitable conditions into a plant resembling the parent. Research Vegetable
Acrochordidae is the 'File Snakes' family of reptiles of the suborder Serpentes (snakes). The family consists of a single genus and three species found in India, south-east Asia, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and northern Australia. The members are almost completely aquatic, and live in fresh water, brackish water and sometimes sea water where they feed on live fish. They grow to a length of 250 cm, and the head and body is covered with small, finely-heeled and pointed scales with a rasp-like texture. Research Acrochordidae
The Alaudidae are the Lark family of Conirostral birds. They are characterized by a bill forming an elongated cone, the mandibles of equal length, the upper convex, slightly curved. The nostrils are at the base of the bill, oval, and partly covered by small feathers directed forwards. The feathers of the head are capable of being erected so as to form a crest. The first primary is very short, the second shorter than the third which is the longest in the wing. The toes are divided to the base. The hind claw is nearly straight and longer than the toes. They are granivorous birds, frequenting open fields, and singing during their flight. They nest and feed on the ground. They take dust baths instead of water baths. Research Alaudidae
Alcidae is the auks family of birds of the order Natatores. They are characterized by a bill which is much flattened vertically; short wings; legs placed at the extremity of the body; the feet are three-toed and palmated; the tail is short. They feed mostly on fish captured by diving. Research Alcidae
An alligator is a genus of crocodilian reptile of the family Alligatoridae. They differ from the true crocodiles in having a shorter and flatter head, in having cavities or pits in the upper jaw, into which the long canine teeth of the under jaw fit, and in having the feet much less webbed. Their habits are less perfectly aquatic. They are confined to the warmer parts of America, where they frequent swamps and marshes, and may be seen basking on the dry ground during the day in the heat of the sun. They are most active during the night, when they make a loud bellowing. The largest of these animals grow to the length of about six metres. They are covered by a dense armour of horny scales, and have a huge mouth, armed with strong, conical teeth. They swim with wonderful celerity, impelled by their long, laterally-compressed, and powerful tails. On land their motions are proportionally slow and embarrassed because of the length and un-wieldiness of their bodies and the shortness of their limbs.
Alligators feed on fish, and any small animals or carrion, and sometimes catch pigs on the shore, or dogs which are swimming. They even sometimes make man their prey. In winter they burrow in the mud of swamps and marshes, lying torpid until the warm weather. The female lays a great number of eggs, which are deposited in the sand or mud, and left to be hatched by the heat of the sun, but the mother alligator is very attentive to her young. The most fierce and dangerous species is that found in the southern parts of the United States Alligator Lucius, having the snout a little turned up, slightly resembling that of the pike. The alligators of South America are there very often called Caymans. Alligator sclerops is known also as the Spectacled Cayman, from the prominent bony rim surrounding the orbit of each eye. The flesh of the alligator is sometimes eaten. Among the fossils of the south of England are remains of a true alligator Alligator Hantoniensis in the Eocene beds of the Hampshire basin. Research Alligator More pictures of Alligator
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Agape
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