Artesian Wells, so called from the French province of Artois, where they appear to have been first used on an extensive scale, are perpendicular borings into the ground through which water rises to the surface of the soil, producing a constant flow or stream, the ultimate sources of supply being higher than the mouth of the boring, and the water thus rising by the well-known law. They are generally sunk in valley plains and districts where the lower pervious strata are bent into basin-shaped curves.
The rain falling on the outcrops of these saturates the whole porous bed, so that when the bore reaches it the water by hydraulic pressure rushes up towards the level of the highest portion of the strata. The supply is sometimes so abundant as to be used extensively as a moving power, and in arid regions for fertilizing the ground, to which purpose artesian springs have been applied from a very remote period. Thus many artesian wells have been sunk in the Algerian Sahara which have proved an immense boon to the district.
The water of most of these is potable, but a few are a little saline, though not to such an extent as to influence vegetation. The hollows in which London and Paris lie are both perforated in many places by borings of this nature. At London they were first sunk only to the sand B B, but latterly into the chalk c o. One of the most celebrated artesian wells is that of Crenelle near Paris, 1798 feet deep, completed in 1841, after eight years' work. Artesian wells are now common in many countries, and have been sunk to the depth of a mile or more. As the temperature of water from great depths is invariably higher than that at the surface, artesian wells have been made to supply warm water for heating manufactories, greenhouses, hospitals, fish-ponds, etc. Petroleumwells are generally of the same technical description. Artesian wells were later made with larger diameters than formerly, and altogether their construction was rendered much more easy after the industrial revolution. Research Artesian Wells
In geomorphology, badlands are areas of bare ground which have been intensely eroded by running water into a maze of miniature canyons and steep slopes. There may be hundreds of tiny stream channels within a single square kilometre or mile, with the channels containing water only after rainstorms. Common on clays and shales in areas where the climate is semi-arid, they occur also on the tip-heaps of mines, especially of china-clay workings, in areas where the climate is wetter. Resistant layers of rock are often left as cappings on pillars of softer rock; these structures are known as hoodoos, or pedestal rocks. Research Badlands
The five mile act, passed in the reign of Elizabeth I, prohibited Roman Catholics convicted of not attending the established church from going more than five miles from their usual place of abode. Another act of the same name passed by Charles II in 1665, prohibited nonconformist preachers and teachers who refused to take the oath of non-resistance, from coming within five miles of any city, town or borough corporate returning members to Parliament, or of any place where they had preached since the Act of Oblivion. This act was appealed by William III in 1689. Research Five Mile Act
The metric system is a system of measurement based on the decimal system. It was first formalised in France at the end of the 18th century and by the 1830s was being widely adopted in Europe. In Britain, bills for its compulsory adoption were defeated in 1871 and 1907 and Imperial units remained supreme until 1963, when the yard was redefined as 0.9144 metre and the pound as 0. 45359237 kilogram. The Metrication Board set up in 1969 failed to achieve its target of the metrication of British industry by 1975 and metrication now proceeds on a voluntary basis, in which it was correctly envisaged that pints of beer, miles per hour, yards, and feet would persist until the end of the century, they have and perhaps will continue for many years to come. However, the Weights and Measures Act (1985) lists certain units that may no longer be used for trade: these include the hundredweight, ton, bushel, square mile, cubic yard, and cubic foot. It is hoped that before the end of the century such units as the therm and British thermal unit will have been abandoned. For all scientific purposes and many trade and industrial purposes the form of the metric system known as SI units is now in use. In the USA metrication has been even slower than in the UK. The metre was intended to be equal to one ten-millionth part of the distance from the pole to the equator, but was found to have been made too short and so is now set upon a certain length of iridio-platinum. Research Metric System
The mile is a unit of the imperial scale of measurement of length equivalent (as set in 1593) to 8 furlongs, 1760 yards or 1.6093 kilometres. The mile was first used by the Romans, whose mile was 1617 English yards. A nautical mile is one minute of the equator, or 2026.334 yards. Research Mile
The Ordnance Survey is a British company producing maps of the British isles. The original work was carried out by the Royal Engineers under the direction of the Board of Ordnance and the survey was begun in 1747 for military purposes. The first map of Great Britain was ordered in 1797 and was published on a scale of 1 inch to the mile. In 1855 with the abolition of the Board of Ordnance the responsibility passed to the War Office and in 1870 was transferred to the Board of Works before in 1890 passing to the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries where the work was still none-the-less carried on by officers and men of the corps of Royal Engineers, before becoming a separate commercial organisation in the later 20th century.
The survey of Ireland, on a scale of 6 inches to the mile was ordered in 1824. In 1840 the survey of Scotland and of the six northern counties of England was begun on the same scale. In 1855 the surveys were ordered to be on the following scales: 1 inch to the mile or 6 inches to the mile for the whole U.K., with other scales for cultivated districts and towns of over 4,000 inhabitants. There were also surveys of the U.K. produced on scales of 2, 4, and 10 miles to the inch.
The department also had the duty of preparing maps for all military purposes, and of copying those
prepared by the intelligence division of the War Office. During the Great War it issued 32,872,000 maps, plans, and diagrams to the Army and Navy. Research Ordnance Survey
Originally, statistics was the branch of political science dealing with the collection, classification, and discussion of numerical facts relating to the condition of a State or community. Now it is the study of numerical data, their classification and analysis. It embraces every department of activity and knowledge to which numerical comparison can be applied, but properly applies to social facts, and its greatest use is in economics and public administration.
The usefulness of statistics is seriously reduced by the ease with which they may be slewed. For example: statistically air transportation is safer than travelling by motor car when comparing accidents over the distance travelled, that is per mile travelled. However, when one compares the statistics of fatalities over the number of journeys made, irrespective of distance, then travelling by aeroplane is ten times more likely to be fatal than travelling by motor car (according to the British Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents).
A further example of how statistics can be slewed is in the popular use of averages, properly the mean average. The reliability of a mean average in establishing the general value of a group of values is strongly dependant upon the large number of elements being compared. For example, if a government wishes to show that the average wage being paid to workers is far higher than it really is, they need only to include a few extraordinary high wage values in the set of figures to offset the more prevalent low values. For example, take a set of 1000 elements each of which has a value between 18,000 and 20,000. Obviously the mean average will accurately describe a value between 18,000 and 20,000. Now add a single value of 500,000 to the set and the mean average will rise by over 450, and yet the most common value will remain the same, between 18,000 and 20,000.
Careful selection of values for inclusion in statistics can also be used to slew the results. A survey of members of the public sounds objective, and gives the impression of being representative of the populace. However, a survey of the public in which only men wearing business suits are selected will in all likelihood produce very different results to a survey in which equal proportions of men and women of varying ages, ethnic origins, and modes of dress are sampled.
Similarly, a survey on morality carried out among adults leaving church on a Sunday morning, should be expected to reveal a different result to a survey carried out among adults leaving a night club in the early hours of a Sunday morning, and yet both could be honestly described as a survey of adults.
The willingness with which the general public accept the findings of statistics, and the difficulty in establishing the objectivity of otherwise of such findings, has long been a powerful weapon in the arsenal of propaganda used by politicians and by advertising firms. Research Statistics
The Five Mile Act was a statute of 1592, repealed in 1844 after a long period of disuse, forbidding popish recusants convicted of not going to church from moving above five miles from their usual place of abode. Research The Five Mile Act
A tournament was originally an exhibition of combat between mounted men. Named from the tournament, or quick turning of the horses, it appeared in Europe in the 11th century, and quickly grew in popularity, both in France and England, where, in the reign of Henry II, it became necessary to prohibit tournaments owing to extravagant indulgence in them by the younger nobility. Later, tournaments were allowed to be held under royal licence, und a classic account of one in the time of Richard I is given in the book Ivanhoe, in which the customs and rules of such assemblies are graphically indicated. Froissart is also a mine of information regarding tournaments.
The essential feature of a tournament was the single combat of knight with knight, each striving to unhorse or incapacitate his opponent, the usual weapon being the lance. Sometimes, however, one body of knights fought against another body. They took place on most occasions of rejoicing.
Participation in tournaments was usually reserved for those of noble birth, and about the end of the 13th century a new set of rules was embodied in a statute of arms for tournaments, which laid down, among other provisions, that disputes arising out of a tournament were to be settled by a court of honour composed of princes and earls. By the 16th century the tournament had degenerated until it was merely a form of pageant. The term is now applied to many kinds of athletic contests.
In the 18th century novel Ivanhoe, the author, Walter Scott describes the arena and audience of a fictional 12th century tournament as follows:
On the verge of a wood, which approached to within a mile of the town of Ashby, was an extensive meadow, of the finest and most beautiful green turf, surrounded on one side by the forest, and fringed on the other by straggling oak-trees, some of which had grown to an immense size. The ground, as if fashioned on purpose for the martial display which was intended, sloped gradually down on all sides to a level bottom, which was enclosed for the lists with strong palisades, forming a space of a quarter of a mile in length, and about half as broad. The form of the enclosure was an oblong square, save that the corners were considerably rounded off, in order to afford more convenience for the spectators. The openings for the entry of the combatants were at the northern and southern extremities of the lists, accessible by strong wooden gates, each wide enough to admit two horsemen riding abreast. At each of these portals were stationed two heralds, attended by six trumpets, as many pursuivants, and a strong body of men-at-arms for maintaining order, and ascertaining the quality of the knights who proposed to engage in this martial game.
On a platform beyond the southern entrance, formed by a natural elevation of the ground, were pitched five magnificent pavilions, adorned with pennons of russet and black, the chosen colours of the five knights challengers. The cords of the tents were of the same colour. Before each pavilion was suspended the shield of the knight by whom it was occupied, and beside it stood his squire, quaintly disguised as a salvage or silvan man, or in some other fantastic dress, according to the taste of his master, and the character he was pleased to assume during the game. The central pavilion, as the place of honour, had been assigned to Brian be Bois-Guilbert, whose renown in all games of chivalry, no less than his connexions with the knights who had undertaken this Passage of Arms, had occasioned him to be eagerly received into the company of the challengers, and even adopted as their chief and leader, though he had so recently joined them. On one side of his tent were pitched those of Reginald Front-de-Boeuf and Richard de Malvoisin, and on the other was the pavilion of Hugh de Grantmesnil, a noble baron in the vicinity, whose ancestor had been Lord High Steward of England in the time of the Conqueror, and his son WilliamRufus. Ralph de Vipont, a knight of St John of Jerusalem, who had some ancient possessions at a place called Heather, near Ashby-de-la-Zouche, occupied the fifth pavilion. From the entrance into the lists, a gently sloping passage, ten yards in breadth, led up to the platform on which the tents were pitched. It was strongly secured by a palisade on each side, as was the esplanade in front of the pavilions, and the whole was guarded by men-at-arms. The northern access to the lists terminated in a similar entrance of thirty feet in breadth, at the extremity of which was a large enclosed space for such knights as might be disposed to enter the lists with the challengers, behind which were placed tents containing refreshments of every kind for their
tion, with armourers, tarriers, and other attendants, in readiness to give their services wherever they might be necessary.
The exterior of the lists was in part occupied by temporary galleries, spread with tapestry and carpets, and accommodated with cushions for the convenience of those ladies and nobles who were expected to attend the tournament. A narrow space, betwixt these galleries and the lists, gave accommodation for yeomanry and spectators of a better degree than the mere vulgar, and might be compared to the pit of a theatre. The promiscuous multitude arranged themselves upon large banks of turf prepared for the purpose, which, aided by the natural elevation of the ground, enabled them to overlook the galleries, and obtain a fair view into the lists. Besides the accommodation which these stations afforded, many hundreds had perched themselves on the branches of the trees which surrounded the meadow; and even the steeple of a country church, at some distance, was crowded with spectators.
It only remains to notice respecting the general arrangement, that one gallery in the very centre of the eastern side of the lists, and consequently exactly opposite to the spot where the shock of the combat was to take place, was raised higher than the others, more richly decorated, and graced by a sort of throne and canopy, on which the royal arms were emblazoned. Squires, pages, and yeomen in rich liveries, waited around this place of honour, which was designed for Prince John and his attendants. Opposite to this royal gallery was another, elevated to the same height, on the western side of the lists; and more gaily, if less sumptuously decorated, than that destined for the Prince himself. A train of pages and of young maidens, the most beautiful who could be selected, gaily dressed in fancy habits of green and pink, surrounded a throne decorated in the same colours. Among pennons and flags bearing wounded hearts, burning hearts, bleeding hearts, bows and quivers, and all the commonplace emblems of the triumphs of Cupid, a blazoned inscription informed the spectators, that this seat of honour was designed for 'La Royne de las Beaulte et des Amours'. But who was to represent the Queen of Beauty and of Love on the present occasion no one was prepared to guess.
Meanwhile, spectators of every description thronged forward to occupy their respective stations, and not without many quarrels concerning those which they were entitled to hold. Some of these were settled by the men-at-arms with brief ceremony; the shafts of their battle-axes, and pummels of their swords, being readily employed as arguments to convince the more refractory. Others, which involved the rival claims of more elevated persons, were determined by the heralds, or by the two marshals of the field, William de Wyvil, and Stephen de Martival, who, armed at all points, rode up and down the lists to enforce and preserve good order among the spectators.
Gradually the galleries became filled with knights and nobles, in their robes of peace, whose long and rich-tinted mantles were contrasted with the gayer and more splendid habits of the ladies, who, in a greater proportion than even the men themselves, thronged to witness a sport, which one would have thought too bloody and dangerous to afford their sex much pleasure. The lower and interior space was soon filled by substantial yeomen and burghers, and such of the lesser gentry, as, from modesty, poverty, or dubious title, durst not assume any higher place. It was of course amongst these that the most frequent disputes for precedence occurred.
Walter Scott goes on to describe the rules of the tournament, which he says were imparted to the audience by the monarch:
First, the five challengers were to undertake all comers.
Secondly, any knight proposing to combat, might, if he pleased, select a special antagonist from among the challengers, by touching his shield. If he did so with the reverse of his lance, the trial of skill was made with what were called the arms of courtesy, that is, with lances at whose extremity a piece of round flat board was fixed, so that no danger was encountered, save from the shock of the horses and riders. But if the shield was touched with the sharp end of the lance, the combat was understood to be at 'outrance', that is, the knights were to fight with sharp weapons, as in actual battle.
Thirdly, when the knights present had accomplished their vow, by each of them breaking five lances, the Prince was to declare the victor in the first day's tourney, who should receive as prize a warhorse of exquisite beauty and matchless strength; and in addition to this reward of valour, it was now declared, he should have the peculiar honour of naming the Queen of Love and Beauty, by whom the prize should be given on the ensuing day.
Fourthly, it was announced, that, on the second day, there should be a general tournament, in which all the knights present, who were desirous to win praise, might take part; and being divided into two bands of equal numbers, might fight it out manfully, until the signal was given by Prince John to cease the combat. The elected Queen of Love and Beauty was then to crown the knight whom the Prince should adjudge to have borne himself best in this second day, with a coronet composed of thin gold plate, cut into the shape of a laurel crown. On this second day the knightly games ceased. But on that which was to follow, feats of archery, of bull-baiting, and other popular amusements, were to be practised, for the more immediate amusement of the populace.
At the flourish of clarions and trumpets, they started out against each other at full gallop; and such was the superior dexterity or good fortune of the challengers, that those opposed to Bois-Guilbert, Malvoisin, and Front-de-Boeuf, rolled on the ground. The antagonist of Grantmesnil, instead of bearing his lance-point fair against the crest or the shield of his enemy, swerved so much from the direct line as to break the weapon athwart the person of his opponent - a circumstance which was accounted more disgraceful than that of being actually unhorsed; because the latter might happen from accident, whereas the former evinced awkwardness and want of management of the weapon and of the horse. The fifth knight alone maintained the honour of his party, and parted fairly with the Knight of St John, both splintering their lances without advantage on either side.
The shouts of the multitude, together with the acclamations of the heralds, and the clangour of the trumpets, announced the triumph of the victors and the defeat of the vanquished. The former retreated to their pavilions, and the latter, gathering themselves up as they could, withdrew from the lists in disgrace and dejection, to agree with their victors concerning the redemption of their arms and their horses, which, according to the laws of the tournament, they had forfeited. The fifth of their number alone tarried in the lists long enough to be greeted by the applauses of the spectators, amongst whom he retreated, to the aggravation, doubtless, of his companions' mortification.
During intervals of the tournament it appears that heralds inspired the contestants and audience by announcements and chants inspiring chivalry and bravery such as:
'Love of ladies, splintering of lances! stand forth gallant knights, fair eyes look upon your deeds!' Research Tournament
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Artesian Wells
