Bliss (II)
EDWIN ELISHA, an Ameri. can missionary, born in Putney, Vt., April 12, 1817; graduated at Amherst College in 1837, and at Andover Theological Seminary in 1842; was ordained as a missionary in 1843, 1843, and joined the American Mission in Turkey, being stationed at Trebizond, 1843-1852; Marsovan, Armenia, 1852-1856; and at Constantinople after 1856. In addition to the ordinary work of a missionary he edited, 1865-1892, the " Messenger, " published at Constantinople in the Turkish and Armenian languages, and compiled a number of text books, notably the " Bible Handbook, " in Armenian. He died in Constantinople, Turkey, Dec. 29, 1892.
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Bliss (III)
FREDERICK JONES, an American explorer, born in Mt. Lebanon, Syria, Jan. 23, 1859; son of Daniel Bliss; was graduated at Amherst College in 1880, and at the Union Theological Seminary in New York in 1887; was principal of the preparatory department of the Syrian Protestant College of Beirut for three years; was appointed Explorer to the Palestine Exploration Fund in 1890, and is best known for his excavations and finds in Jerusalem in 1894-1897, and again in 1898-1900. From 1911 to 1914 he was dean for men at the University of Rochester. He was a member of the committee appointed by General Allenby to report on the condition of buried ancient buildings in Syria and Palestine in 1919. He has published "Mounds of Many Cities," "Excavations at Jerusalem," etc.
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Bliss (IV)
TASKER HOWARD, an American soldier; born in Lewisburg, Pa., Dec. 31, 1853. He graduated from West Point in 1875 and from the United States Artillery School in 1884. From 1885 to 1898 he was professor of military science at the United States Naval War College. He served in Cuba and GEN. TASKER BLISS Porto Rico in the Spanish - American War and became commandant of the Army War College in 1903. He was made Chief of Staff of the U. S. Army in 1917, succeeding Major Gen. Hugh L. Scott. During the World War he represented the United States at the sessions of the Inter-Allied war conferences, and in 1919 was one of the American delegates to the Peace Conference at Paris.
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Blister Fly
the name for any fly, using that term in its widest sense to designate any flying insect. The more common blister flies are beetles, and they are in consequence sometimes called blister beetles. That most frequently employed by medical men for raising raising blisters on the skin is the lytta vesicatoria, formerly called cantharis vesicatorius. It feeds on the ash. It is indigenous in the south of Europe, and being, among other places, imported from Spain, is often called the Spanish fly.
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Blister Steel
steel of blistered apperance formed by rosting bar iron in contact with carbon in a cementing furnace. Two subsequent processes convert it into shear steel and cast steel.
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Blistered Steel
A remarkable modification of iron intermediate between cast and wrought iron, containing less carbon than cast iron, but more than wrought (about 1 1/2 per cent). It is made by imbedding bars of best wrought iron in powdered charcoal in boxes or sand-furnaces which exclude the air, and heating intensely for a week or ten days. The steel, when withdrawn, has a peculiar, rough, blistered appearance, and for this reason is called blistered-steel. See CEMENTATION; CAST STEEL.
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Block House
a fortified edifice of one or more stories, constructed chiefly of blocks or hewn timber. Block houses are supplied with loopholes for musketry and sometimes with embrasures for cannon, and when of more than one story the upper ones are made to overhang those below, and are furnished with machicolations or loopholes in the overhung floor, so that a perpendicular fire can be directed against the enemy in close attack. In the World War (1914- 1918) the Germans used concrete block houses in northern France to defend their front lines.
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Block Island
an island in the Atlantic off the coast of Rhode Island, to which it belongs: named from Adrian navigator who discovered Block, a Dutch it in 1616. There is a lighthouse at its S. E. extremity visible 21 miles. The island forms the township of New Shoreham, esteemed as a summer resort.
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Block Printing
the method of printing from wooden blocks (producing block books), as is still done in calico printing and in making wall paper. See PRINTING.
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Block-moulding
A device for producing thin, delicate castings, by first obtaining correct impressions in plaster of cope and nowel side of the pattern, upon which the respective parts are rammed separately in flasks which fit interchangeably. By this means all the moulds are exact impressions of the original pattern, as all danger of ramming out of shape is obviated. The match-parts and flasks being all interchangeable, there is no possibility of error. See PLATE-MOULDING; MATCH-PART.
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Block-print
A large core print on a pattern, the impression of which receives a core containing some part of the mould, which if moulded from the pattern would require much more time, besides superior skill to perform it. The core is termed a block core. See CORE-PRINT.
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Blockhouse
a sort of fortification much used by the American settlers as a defense against the Indians. In its simplest form, it is a log house pierced with port holes for the use of riflemen. The typical colonial blockhouse was large enough to accommodate a force of from twenty-five to one hundred men. A basement was excavated in which women and children might remain secure from chance bullets. The walls were built of logs hewed and closely joined, sometimes of two thicknesses, so as to intercept bullets. A second story very frequently extended a few feet beyond the lower story, so that an enemy approaching the walls might be dislodged by an attack from above. Several blockhouses were frequently connected by a curtain or wall, in such a way as to inclose an area into which stock could be driven for protection. These walls were constructed of logs set upright in a trench so closely together that they formed a barrier against the arrows and bullets of the foe. A fort of this sort is more properly, however, called a stockade. 2026 Editor's Note: The word survived its log-and-loophole original by moving to the launch pad: a " blockhouse " now means the heavily reinforced control building from which rocket launches are directed, built to protect its occupants from an explosion rather than from rifle fire. (Ed: BR 2026-06-05)
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