A buck-rider was a dummy-fare who enabled a cabman to pass police-constables who prevented empty cabs from loitering at places where they were likely to be required, such as theatres and music-halls, and large hotels. A cabman who wanted to get at such a place under hope of picking up a fare would pay a person known as a 'buck', a shilling to get into his cab so that he might appear to be carrying a fare and so pass the police. Research Buck-Rider
A cresset is a basket of open iron-work in which wood or coal is burned as a beacon. Formerly the cresset was used where lighthouses are now erected. The name was also given in the middle ages and later indifferently to the fixed candlesticks in great halls and churches and to lamps or fire-pans suspended on pivots and carried on poles in processions, municipal and military watches, etc. Research Cresset
Lakes are accumulations of water in hollows on the earth's surface. When they are drained by rivers their waters are fresh, but when they have no outlet they are salty, e.g. the Dead Sea, Sea of Aral, etc.
Lakes may owe their origin to:
Barriers across a river valley hold back the water, which forms a lake. Such barriers may be of various types. (a) Sometimes artificial barriers of concrete and masonry are built across a valley so as to make a lake which can act as a reservoir for the water-supply of a large city, e.g. LakeVyrnwy for Liverpool. (b) A glacier may deposit a mass of morainic material across a valley. In this way the lakes of the Lake District and many of the Scottish lakes were formed. (c) A landslip may occur. A lake was formed thus in the Upper GangesValley in 1892. Two years later the landslip dam gave way, and disastrous floods occurred downstream. (d) Oxbow lakes are formed from the meanders of rivers. The deposition of silt at the two ends of the 'oxbow' closes the channel between the main river and its old loop. Many oxbow lakes border the River Murray in Australia, and the lower Mississippi. (e) Sometimes a lavastream may flow across a valley and cause the formation of a lake, e.g. LakeTaupo in New Zealand. (f) Sometimes large estuaries are partially filled with silt. In the portions not so filled are large shallow lagoons. Such lagoons are found in deltaic areas. The NorfolkBroads are portions of an old river estuary. (g) When a silt-laden stream enters a lake its speed is checked and a barrier or delta is built across the lake splitting it into two portions. This has happened in the Lake District, where Keswick stands in the alluvial flats between Lakes Bassenthwaite and Derwentwater, and in Switzerland, where Interlaken is situated in the flats between Lakes Thun and Brienz. (h) The action of the sea often causes an accumulation of sand and pebbles which cuts off a lagoon of sea water. The Fleet in Dorset is such a lagoon, cut off from the sea by Chesil Bank, a long pebble beach which joins Portland Island to the mainland.
The nehrungs of East Prussia are sand-spits which enclose the shallow salt-water lagoons or halls, such as Kurische Haff. Earth movements cause lakeformation when subsidence occurs. This is most easily seen in rift valleys. Examples of riftvalley lakes are the Dead Sea, Lakes Nyasa and Tanganyika in Africa, and LakeTorrens in Australia. These are all long, narrow, and very deep lakes.
In Cheshire, the removal of underground beds of salt has caused subsidence resulting in the 'meres' of the Weaver Valley. The 'folding' of the earth across the line of a river valley may partially block a river and help to form a lake. The study of a good physical map will reveal the connection between mountain building and the formation of LakeGeneva and LakeConstance in Switzerland. Where there are large areas of depressed lowland wide and shallow lakes are formed in the lowest part of the depression, for example the Sea of Aral in Asiatic Russia, LakeBalaton in Hungary, and LakeEyre in Australia. Ice sheets and valley glaciers may scoop out hollows to form 'rock basins'. Mountain tarns and corrie lakes in North Wales and Scotland have been formed in this way. Water also accumulates in the hollows of unevenly- distributed glacial drift. Such are the lakes of East Prussia, and also those of the Cheshire-Shropshire borders near Ellesmere. Subsidence of the land surface and consequent lakeformation may be directly related to volcanic action. Lough Neagh in Northern Ireland is a shallow lake formed by subsidence of this type. Lakes are often formed by the accumulation of water in the craters of extinct volcanoes, for example the Laachersee in the Eifel region of Germany. Research Lakes
Samuel Carter Hall was an English writer. He was born in 1800 and died in 1889. He studied law and became a barrister; reported parliamentary debates for the New Times; edited in succession the Amulet, the New Monthly Magazine, and the Art Journal from 1839 to 1880, besides various popular annuals, and the Book of Gems, Book of British Ballads, and Baronial Halls. He also published Memories of Great Men and Women of the Age (1870),and The Retrospect of a Long Life (1883). He was associated with the founding of various London charities, and from 1880 received an annual civil-list pension. His wife was Anna Maria Fielding, an Irish writer. Research Samuel Hall
Alfred Glenville Vance or Great Vance (real name Alfred Peck Stevens) was a British comedian and actor. He was born in 1838 at London and died in 1888. He became a touring actor, and later opened a dancing-school at Liverpool. He again toured as a character singer before appearing on the variety stage at the Metropolitan and South London music halls, where his humorous cockney songs soon became popular. Research Alfred Vance
Sir Harry Lauder was a Scottish comedian and variety actor. He was born in 1870 at Portobello and died in 1950. After working at a flax mill he became a miner before making his first appearance as an amateur comedian at Arbroath. He made his London debut at Gatti's in 1900 before going on to perform at the leading London musical halls, where he sang Scottish songs written and composed by himself. He was knighted in 1920. Research Harry Lauder
J Pat O'Malley was an Irish born American actor. He appeared in the 1976 comedy 'The Gumball Rally' and also 'Mary Poppins'. Starting work in British music halls, he moved to the USA during the Second World War and went on to provide voices for animated comedy films. Research J. Pat O'Malley
Prior to the use of carpets in Britain, a floor-cloth was a covering for the floors of halls, passages, lobbies, and other places where there was a great deal of traffic. The original floor-cloth was a heavy canvas coated with painters' colours and decorated by hand, the hand-painting being subsequently replaced by stencil-work, which in its turn gave way to the use of hand-blocks which had become universal by the Victorian period.
During the Victorian period, Kirkcaldy, in Fifeshire, Scotland, was the chief seat of the floor-cloth manufacture. The canvas, which forms its basis, was woven in webs from six to eight yards wide and 150 yards long, each web being subsequently divided into six for further operations. The material of the best kinds was stout tow yarn, but for the cheaper qualities jutecanvas was employed. The pieces were stretched in frames, and the under surface received a coating of thin size, upon which a layer of paint was laid with trowels, the chief ingredients being oil, turpentine, ochre, and umber; this was allowed to dry and then smoothed with pumice-stone, after which it was finished off with another thinner coat, in which boiled oil without turpentine was employed, the result being to produce a glossy surface and finish. The face then received a layer of size and three 'trowelling ' coats, with intermediate applications of pumice-stone, after which it was ready for printing, an expensive process, often as many as eight different colours being employed.
Oil floor-cloth having a cold and hard surface, and being almost as noisy to the tread as wooden flooring, several other substances were introduced to take its place which, while free from these defects, retained its advantages of durability, cleanliness, and freedom from damp. Of these, kamptulicon, invented about 1843, was composed essentially of india-rubber mixed with ground cork, the amalgamation being effected by repeated passing between grooved rollers. When thoroughly incorporated, the preparation was rolled by heavy steam-heated rollers into sheets, sometimes over a canvas backing. Simple patterns were printed on the surface, which was, however, left as plain as possible.
Gutta-percha, sawdust, ground leather, asphalt, and chalk have also been used for the inferior kinds of kamptulicon, the higher grades of which, composed mainly of india-rubber and ground cork, were rather expensive. By 1906 Kamptulicon had been almost entirely superseded by the cheaper linoleum, a substance then consisting chiefly of oxidized linseed-oil, resin, and ground cork, treated in much the same manner as kamptulicon. Corkcarpet was a floorcloth introduced during the later Victorian period, differing from linoleum in containing larger particles of cork. Research Floor-Cloth
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Buck-Rider
