A cave, or cavern is an opening of some size in the solid crust of the earth beneath the surface. Caves are principally met with in limestone rocks, sometimes in sandstone and in volcanic rocks. Some of them have a very grand or picturesque appearance, such as Fingal's Cave in Staffordshire, others, such as the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky, which incloses an extent of about 40 miles of subterranean windings, are celebrated for their great size and subterranean waters, others for their gorgeous stalactites and stalagmites; others are of interest to the geologist and archaeologist from the occurrence in them of osseous remains of animals no longer found in the same region, perhaps altogether extinct, or for the evidence their clay floors and rudely-sculptured walls, and the prehistoric implements and human bones found in them, offer of the presence of early man.
Caves in which the bones of extinct animals are found owe their origin, for the most part, to the action of rain-water on limestone rocks. The deposit contained in them usually consists of clay, sand, and gravel combined. In this are embedded the animal remains, and stones either angular or rounded. Some of the remains found in European caverns belong to animals now found only in the tropical or subtropical regions, and others are the remains of animals now living in more northerly areas; others, again, are the relics of extinct animals. Among the latter class of animals are the cave bear and lion, the mammoth and mastodon, species of rhinoceros, etc. Of others that have only migrated may be mentioned the reindeer, which is no longer found in Southern Europe; and the Hyoena crocuta, found in the Gibraltar caves, which now lives in South Africa. The ibex, the chamois, and a species of ground squirrel, are shown to have once lived in the Dordogne, but are now found only on the heights of the Alps and Pyrenees.
Thus it is evident that the geographical conditions of the country must have been very different from what they are now. Man's relation to these extinct animals, and his existence at the time these changes took place, are demonstrated by such discoveries as those of human bones and worked flints beneath layers of hyena droppings, as in Wokey's Hole, near Wells, England; mixed up indiscriminately, as in Kent's Hole, near Torquay, with bones of elephant, rhinoceros, hyena, etc; and by the fact that many bones of the extinct animals are split up, evidently for the sake of the marrow.
In the Dordogne and Savigne caves fragments of horn have been found bearing carved, or rather deeply scratched, outline figures of ibex, reindeer, and mammoth. Among the most remarkable bone-caves are those of Kirkdale, in Yorkshire; Kent's Hole, Wokey's Hole; of Franconia, in Bavaria; the banks of the Meuse, near Liege; and the south of France. Research Cave
Femgerichte (Fehmgerichte or Vehmgerichte) were criminal courts of Germany in the middle ages, which took the place of the regular administration of justice (then fallen into decay), especially in criminal cases. These courts originated and had their chief jurisdiction in Westphalia, and their proceedings were conducted with the most profound secrecy. They seem to have been a survival of old territorial jurisdictions which, on the general distraction and lawlessness prevalent after the fall of Henry the Lion in 1182, acquired an extensive and tremendous authority. In process of time, however, they degenerated, and no longer confined themselves to law and precedent, so that the secrecy in which they enveloped themselves only served as a cloak to their criminal purposes.
The flagrant abuse of their power brought about their fall. In 1461 various princes and cities of Germany, as well as the Swiss confederates, united in a league against them, but their influence was not entirely destroyed until an amended form of trial and penal judicature was introduced. The last Femgericht was held at Zeil in 1568.
The president of the secret tribunal was called the Freigraf, and was generally a prince or count. His associates, who concurred in and executed the sentence, were called Freischoffen. These were scattered through all the provinces of Germany, and recognized one another by certain signs and watchwords. They acknowledged the emperor as their superior, and for this reason generally made him one of their number at his coronation at Aix-la-Chapelle. The assemblies of the tribunal were open or secret. The former were held by day in the open air; the latter by night, in a forest or in concealed and subterranean places. In these different cases the circumstances of judgment and the process of trial were different. The crimes of which the secret tribunal usurped cognizance were heresy, sorcery, rape, theft, robbery, and murder.
The accusation was made by one of the Freischoffen, who, without further proof, declared upon oath that the accused had committed the crime. The accused was now thrice summoned to appear before the secret tribunal, and the citation was secretly affixed to the door of his dwelling or some neighbouring place; the accuser remained unknown. If, after the third summons, the accused did not appear, he was once more cited in a solemn session of the court, and if still contumacious, was given over to the Freischoffen. The first Freischoffe who met him was bound to execute the decree of the court. A dagger was left by the corpse to show that it was not a murder, but a punishment inflicted by one of the Freischoifen. How many judicial murders were perpetrated in this manner from revenge, interested motives, or malice, may well be imagined. Research Femgerichte
Hieroglyphics (so called from the Greek hieros, sacred, and glypho, I engrave), is a term originally applied to the inscriptions sculptured on buildings in Egypt, in the belief that the writing was confined to sacred subjects, and legible only to the priests. The term has also been applied to picture-writing in general, such as that of the Mexicans and the still ruder pictures of the North American Indians.
Three different modes of writing were used by the ancient Egyptians, the Hieroglyphic, the Hieratic, and the Demotic. Pure hieroglyphic writing is the earliest, and consists of figures of material objects from every sphere of nature and art, with certain mathematical and arbitrary symbols. Next was developed the hieratic or priestly writing, the form in which most Egyptian literature is written, and in which the symbols almost cease to be recognizable as figures of objects. Hieratic writings of the third millennium BC are extant. In the demotic or enchorial writing, derived directly from the hieratic, the symbols are still more obscured. The demotic was first used in the 9th century BC, and was chiefly employed in social and commercial intercourse.
Down to the end of the 18th century scholars failed to find a clue to the hieroglyphic writings. In 1799, however, Bouchard, a French captain of engineers, discovered at Rosetta the celebrated stone which afforded European scholars a key to the language and writing of the ancient Egyptians. It contained a trilingual inscription in hieroglyphics, demotic characters, and Greek, which turned out
to be a decree of the priests in honour of Ptolemy V, issued in 195 BC. The last paragraph of the Greek inscription stated that two translations, one in the sacred and the other in the popular Egyptian language, would be found adjacent to it.
The discovery of an alphabet was the first task. The demotic part of the inscription was first examined by De Sacy and Akerblad, and the signification of a number of the symbols ascertained. The hieroglyphic part was next carefully examined and compared with the demotic and Greek. At last after much study Champollion and Dr. Thomas Young, independently of each other, discovered the method of reading the characters in 1822, and thus provided a clue to the decipherment of the ancient Egyptian writing.
Hieroglyphic characters are either ideographic, i.e. using well-known objects as symbols of conceptions, or phonetic, i.e. representing words by symbols standing for their sounds. The phonetic signs are again divided into alphabetical signs and syllabic signs. Many of the ideographic characters are simple enough; thus the figure of a man, a woman, a calf, indicate simply those objects. Others, however, are less simple, and convey their meaning figuratively or symbolically.
Water was expressed by three zigzag lines, one above the other, to represent waves or ripples of running water, milk by a milk-jar, oil by an oil-jar, fishing by a pelicanseizing a fish, i.e. fishing; seeing and sight by an eye; and so on.
The nature of the phonetic hieroglyphs, which represent simply sounds are more diffuclt to explain. Characters represent sounds, thus a picture of a knee represents a K sound. A lioncouchant represents the L sound. A reed represents the E sound The reed is doubled to represents the diphthong 'ai'. A noose represents the O sound. A mat represents the P sound. An eagle represents the A sound. The hand represents the T sound. A semicircle is found at the end of feminine proper names, and is the Coptic feminine article T.
The researches of Champollion satisfied him of the existence of homophones, or characters having the same phonetic value and which might be interchanged in writing proper names. The mouth, represents the R sound. The egg is found at the end of proper names of women, and is a feminine affix. The hook represents the S sound Vowels were only regarded by the Egyptians as they were needed to avoid ambiguous writing.
There are groups of hieroglyphs of which one element is an ideographic sign, to which a phonetic complement is added to indicate the pronunciation of the ideographic sign. The words of a text could be written in hieroglyphs in three ways: 1. By phonetic hieroglyphs, 2. By ideographic hieroglyphs; and 3, by a combination of both. According to Ebers, in the perfected system of hieroglyphics the symbols for sounds and syllables are to be regarded as the foundation of the writing, while symbols for ideas are interspersed with them, partly to render the meaning more intelligible, and partly for ornamental purposes, or with a view to keep up the mystic character of the hieroglyphics. Research Hieroglyphics
A metaphor is a figure of speech in which instead of comparing (as in a simile) the qualities common to two objects, we bodily transfer the qualities of the one to the other, as in 'The man was a lion in the fight'. Research Metaphor
Una is the heroine of the first book of Spenser's Faery Queene. She is the personification of truth, and having sought at the court of Gloriana (Queen Elizabeth I) a champion to slay the dragon which keeps her parents prisoner, secures the aid of the Red Cross Knights. They set forth together but get separated by the magic of Archimago, after which Una for a time is accompanied by a lion. Research Una
The zodiac was the name given by the ancient Greeks to the heavens. It was an imaginary belt in the celestial sphere, extending about 80 degrees on either side of the ecliptic, the apparent path of the Sun among the stars. The width of the zodiac was determined originally so as to include the orbits of the Sun and Moon and of the five planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn) that were known to the people of ancient times.
The zodiac is divided into 12 sections of 300 degrees each, which are called the signs of the zodiac. Starting with the vernalequinox and then proceeding eastward along the ecliptic, each of the divisions is named for the constellation situated within its limits in the second century BC. The names of the zodiacal signs are Aries, the Ram; Taurus, the Bull; Gemini, the Twins; Cancer, the Crab; Leo, the Lion; Virgo, the Virgin; Libra, the Balance; Scorpio, the Scorpion; Sagittarius, the Archer; Capricorn, the Goat; Aquarius, the Water Bearer; and Pisces, the Fish. Because of the precession of the equinoxes about the ecliptic, a 26,000-year cycle, the first point of Aries retrogrades about 10 degrees in 70 years, so that the sign Aries today lies in the constellationPisces. In about 24,000 years, when the retrogression will have completed the entirecircuit of 3600, the zodiacal signs and constellations will again coincide.
It is believed that the zodiacal signs originated in Mesopotamia as early as 2000 BC . The Greeks adopted the symbols from the Babylonians and passed them on to the other ancient civilisations. The Egyptians assigned other names and symbols to the zodiacal divisions. The Chinese also adopted the 12-fold division, but called the signs rat, ox, tiger, hare, dragon, serpent, horse, sheep, monkey, hen, dog, and pig. Independently, the Aztec Indians devised a similar system. Research Zodiac
The ant-lion is the larva of a Neuropterous insect Myrmeleon formicarius, which in its perfect state greatly resembles a dragon-fly. The ant-lion is curious on account of its ingenious method of catching the insects - chiefly ants - on which it feeds. It digs a funnel-shaped hole in the driest and finest sand it can find, and when the pit is deep enough, and the sides are quite smooth and sloping, it buries itself at the bottom with only its formidable mandibles projecting, and waits until some luckless insect stumbles over the edge, when it is immediately seized, its juices sucked, and the dead body jerked out. Ant-lions inhabit Southern Europe. Research Ant-Lion
The dandelion (Leontodontaraxacum) is a plant of the family Compositae indigenous to Europe, but introduced into America. It gets its name from its appearance, dent de lion (French for Lion's tooth), the leaves being all radical, and runcinate or jagged on the margin. The stems are hollow and have one bright yellow flower. The tapering, milky perennialroot was formerly used as a medicine for liver complaints. The whole plant is full of a milky and bitter juice. The seed of the plant is furnished with a white pappus, and is transported far and wide by the wind. Research Dandelion
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Cave
