Currying is the art of dressing cow-hides, calves'-skins, seal-skins, etc, principally for shoes, saddlery, or harness, after they have come from the tanner. In dressing leather for shoes the leather is first soaked in water until it is thoroughly wet; then the flesh side is shaved to a proper surface with a knife of peculiar construction, rectangular in form with two handles and a double edge, The leather is then thrown into the water again, scoured upon a stone until the white substance called bloom is forced out, then rubbed with a greasy substance and hung up to dry. When thoroughly dry it is grained with a toothed instrument on the flesh side and bruised on the grain or hair side for the purpose of softening the leather. A further process of paring and graining makes it ready for waxing or colouring, in which oil and, traditionally, lamp-black, are used on the flesh side. It is then sized, dried, and tallowed. In the process the leather is made smooth, lustrous, supple, and water-proof. Research Currying
The Phylum brachiopoda are the lamp shells. They are triploblastic animals enclosed in a dorsal and a ventral shell resembling a Roman lamp, hence their popular name of 'lamp shell'. The anterior part of the body bears a horseshoe-shaped ridge covered in ciliated tentacles. The coelom is extensive and continued into the folds of the body wall below the shell and into the tentacles. A simple vascular system is present. Research Phylum Brachiopoda
Delia Derbyshire was a British composer and the inspiration behind modern electronic music. She died in 2001. As a studio manager at the BBC, working in the radiophonic workshop she arranged the theme tune for the 1960's television series 'Dr Who' from a few suggested notes passed to her on a scrap of paper by her boss. Delia Derbyshire composed music from adjusting sounds she found in everyday life, such as a metal lamp shade being struck by a stick, or a key run along a piano string, a sound which features in the Dr Whotheme tune, recording these sounds onto short pieces of tape, and splicing them, adjusting the speed at which they were played and playing them backwards to produce revolutionary new sounds, all without the benefit of computers or synthesisers. Research Delia Derbyshire
Florence Nightingale was a British nurse, the pioneer of trained army nursing and reformer of hospital nursing. She was born in 1820 at Florence and died in 1910. She went through a course of training at the Protestant Deaconesses' Institute at Kaiserswerth in Germany, and subsequently studied French methods at Paris. Returning to England she reformed the management of the sanatorium for governesses in Harley Street, London. Hearing of the sufferings of the troops in the Crimea she sailed in October 1854 for Scutari. There she attended the sick during the Crimean War before leaving in July 1856. Her nightly rounds of the wards, so eagerly awaited by the troops, won for her the title of the 'Lady with the lamp'. The British people were grateful at her work, and presented her with a gift of 50000 pounds, with which she founded a training home for nurses. She wrote 'Notes on Nursing' in 1858, as well as a private report to the government on the Army Medical Corps and its work in the Crimea. Research Florence Nightingale
Galileo Galilee was an Italian physicist. He was born in 1564 at Pisa and died in 1642. The son of a Florentine nobleman, his father intended him to go into medicine and procured for him an excellent education in literature and the arts, and in 1581 he entered the University of Pisa.
At nineteen the swinging of a lamp in Pisacathedral led him to investigate the laws of the oscillation of the pendulum, which he subsequently applied in the measurement of time; and in 1586 the works of Archimedes suggested his invention of the hydrostatic balance. He now devoted his attention exclusively to mathematics and natural science, and in 1589 was made professor of mathematics in the University of Pisa.
In 1592 he was appointed professor of mathematics in Padua, where he continued eighteen years, and his lectures acquired European fame. Here he made the important discovery that the spaces through which a body falls, in equal times, increase as the numbers 1, 3, 5, 7. If he did not invent he improved the thermometer, and made some interesting observations on the magnet. To the telescope, which in Holland remained not only imperfect but useless, he gave a new importance. He noted the irregularity of the moon's surface, and taught his scholars to measure the height of its mountains by their shadow.
A particular nebula he resolved into individual stars, and conjectured that the Milky Way might be resolved in the same manner. His most remarkable discovery was that of Jupiter's satellites in 1610, and he observed, though imperfectly, the ring of Saturn. He also detected the sun's spots, and inferred, from their regular advance from east to west, the rotation of the sun, and the inclination of its axis to the plane of the ecliptic.
In 1610 Cosmo II, grand-duke of Tuscany, appointed him grand-ducal mathematician and philosopher, and with increased leisure he lived sometimes in Florence, and sometimes at the country seat of his friend Salviata, where he gained a decisive victory for the Copernican system by the discovery of the varying phases of Mercury, Venus, and Mars. In 1611 he visited Rome for the first time, where he was honourably received; but on his return to Florence he became more and more involved in controversy, which gradually took a theological turn.
The, monks preached against him, and in 1616 he found himself again obliged to proceed to Rome, where he is doubtfully said to have pledged himself to abstain from promulgating his astronomical views. In 1623 Galileo replied to an attack upon him in his Saggiatore, a masterpiece of eloquence, which drew upon him the fury of the Jesuits. In 1632, with the permission of the pope, he published a dialogue expounding the Copernican system as against the Ptolemaic. A congregation of cardinals, monks, and mathematicians, all sworn enemies of Galileo, examined his work, condemned it as highly dangerous, and summoned him before the tribunal of the Inquisition. The veteran philosopher was compelled to go to Rome early in 1633, and was condemned to renounce upon his knees the truths he had maintained. At the moment when he arose, he is said (but this is doubtful) to have exclaimed, in an undertone, stamping his foot, 'E pur si muove!' (and yet it moves!). Upon this he was sentenced to the dungeons of the Inquisition for an indefinite time, and every week, for three years, was to repeat the seven penitential psalms of David. After a few days' detention his sentence of imprisonment was commuted to banishment to the villa of the Grand-duke of Tuscany at Rome, and then to the archiepiscopal palace at Sienna.
He was afterwards allowed to return to his residence at Arcetri, near Florence, where he employed his last years principally in the study of mechanics and projectiles. The results are found in two important works on the laws of motion, the foundation of the present system of physics and astronomy. At the same time he tried to make use of Jupiter's satellites for the calculation of longitudes; and though he brought nothing to perfection in this branch, he was the first who reflected systematically on such a method of fixing geographical longitudes. He was at this time afflicted with a disease in his eyes, one of which was wholly blind and the other almost useless, when, in 1637, he discovered the libration of the moon.
Domestic troubles and disease embittered the last years of Galileo's life. After his death his remains were ultimately deposited in the church of Sta. Croce, at Florence. Research Galileo
George Stephenson was an English engineer. He was born in 1781 at Wylam and died in 1848. The son of Robert Stephenson, a colliery fireman, he became assistant to his father when he was 14, learning to read and write at night school. In 1808 he contracted with two others to work the engines of Killingworth pit, where he dismantled the engine every week until he was a thorough master of its construction. In 1812 he was appointed engine-wright to the colliery, and in 1815 he invented a safety lamp for the use of the miners.
The rapid progress of the steam engine caught his attention and in 1814, having received financial assistance, he built his first locomotive. In 1815 he made a number of improvements to his locomotive, including the use of the steam blast. The failure of steam locomotives to work on any real gradient on the roads caused George Stephenson to turn his attention to the construction of railroads, and in 1819 he superintended the laying of a short line at Hetton Collieries, and in 1823 a line between Stockton and Darlington.
His first locomotive to use this line achieved a speed of 16 mph and weighed eight tons. In 1826 he began construction of the Liverpool and ManchesterRailway and in 1829, with the assistance of his son, Robert Stephenson, the locomotive called The Rocket for which he is best known. In 1847 he became president of the Mechanical Engineers and was appointed chief engineer to a number of railways and provided consultation on almost every important railway constructed during the 1830's and 1840's. Research George Stephenson
Sir Humphry Davy was an English chemist. He was born in 1778 at Penzance and died in 1829.
After having received the rudiments of a classical education he was placed with a surgeon and apothecary, and early developed a taste for scientific experiments. He studied under Lavoisier and Nicholson and became superintendent of the Pneumatic Institution in Bristol. There he studied the properties of nitrous oxide, and as a result was made assistant lecturer and was appointed professor of chemistry in the Royal Institution at the age of twenty-four.
In 1803 he was chosen a member of the Royal Society. His discoveries with the galvanic battery, his decomposition of the earths and alkalies and ascertaining their metallic bases, his demonstration of the simple nature of the oxymuriatic acid (to which he gave the name of chlorine), etc, obtained him an extensive reputation; and in 1810 he received the prize of the French Institute. In 1814 he was elected a corresponding member of that body. Having been elected professor of chemistry to the Board of Agriculture he delivered lectures on agricultural chemistry during ten successive years. The numerous accidents arising from fire-damp in mines led him to enter upon a series of experiments on the nature of the explosive gas, the result of which was the invention of his safety-lamp.
He was knighted in 1812, and created a baronet in 1818. In 1820 he succeeded Sir J Banks as president of the Royal Society, and at the time of his death he was a member of most of the scientific societies of Europe. His health had been failing for some time, and in his last year he had gone abroad for his health. His most important works are: Philosophical Researches;
Elements of Agricultural Chemistry; Electro-Chemical Researches; Elements of Chemical Philosophy; Researches on the Oxymuriatic Acid; On Fire-damp. He also contributed some valuable papers to the Philosophical Transactions, and was author of Salmonia, or Days of Fly-fishing; and Consolations in Travel, or the Last Days of a Philosopher. Research Humphry Davy
Sir Joseph Wilson Swan was a British inventor. He was born in 1828 at Sunderland and died in 1917. Educated privately, he joined a firm of manufacturing chemists at Newcastle as an assistant, where he turned his attention to improving methods of photography, in 1862 patenting the carbon process. He is best known, however, for his work on electric lighting, in 1860 producing a carbon filament lamp and in 1880 publicly exhibiting a successful carbon filament vacuumlamp. Research Joseph Swan
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Brunswick Black
