Revolving Sand-screen
See RIDDLES. Rhodium is one of the rare metals of the platinum group. Excepting iridium, it is the most infusible metal, very hard and brittle, and of a whitish color. When this metal is alloyed with copper, bismuth, or platinum, it may be dissolved with them in aqua regia, but it is insoluble in acids when pure. Owing to its unalterable nature, rhodium has been extensively used to form the nibs of metallic pens and other similar purposes. See PLATINUM.
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Rewa
a state of India, called also BAGHELKHAND. Area, 13,000 square miles. Pop. about 1,500,000. REWA KANTHA is the name of a political agency under the government of Bombay, containing 61 small states, of which five are tributary to the British Government, and most of the remainder to Baroda. The territory included, covering an area of about 5,000 square miles, with a population of about 700,000, lies mainly alo mainly along the S. bank of the lower Nerbudda with patches N. of it, and on the W. borders on Broach, Baroda, and Ahmadabad.
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Rewari
a town of the district of Gurgaon, in the extreme S. of the Punjab, 50 miles S. W. of Delhi, an important center for trade between the Punjab and Rajputana. Pop. about 25,000.
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Rexford
EBEN EUGENE, an American poet; born in Johnsburg, N. Y., July 16, 1848. He began to write when a mere child, contributing to periodicals and magazines. He published in book form the poems "Brother and Lover" and "Grandmother's Garden" (1887); and a story, "John Fielding and His Enemy" (1888). "The Swamp Secret" (1897); "Into the Light" (1899), etc. He wrote the popular songs "Silver Threads Among the Gold" and "Only a Pansy-Blossom.' He died in 1916.
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Reynard the Fox
the title of a well-known popular epic, the characters of which are animals instead of men. It belongs to the series of beast fables which have delighted the popular imagination from early ages and in all lands, from India to the Bushmen's country in South Africa.
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Reynolds, Joshua
ren'olz, Joshua (1723-1792), an English painter. He was the first president of the Royal Academy. He was a friend and intimate of Samuel Johnson and Edmund Burke, and a member of the famous Literary Club. We are indebted to Reynolds for the portraits of the distinguished London people of his day. At the height of his fame he painted a hundred portraits a year and employed many assistants. Many of his paintings are now worthless through use of poor paint. At death he was accorded burial in St. Paul's. See Painting ; West
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Rhapsode
or Rhapsodist, a name given by the ancient Greeks to their wandering minstrels, who sang the Homeric and other poems. Each separate song or ballad was called a rhapsody. It was by means of the rhapsodes that these poems were preserved before they were committed to writing, and thus made generally accessible. An important step in the development of Greek tragedy was made when Thespis arranged a sort of dialogue between the leader of a chorus and a rhapsode at the Dionysian festival. The Greek rhapsode corresponds to the scald of the Scandinavians, the French trouvere, the Celtic bard, and the AngloSaxon gleeman. The word rhapsode means literally, "one who strings songs together." See Minstrel ; Bard ; Ballad
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Rhapsodist
strictly, one who strings songs together, but usually applied to a class of persons in ancient Greece, who earned their living by reciting the poems of Homer. It is believed that to these persons we are chiefly indebted for the preservation of the Homeric poems. In the present day, a rhapsodist is one who composes rhapsodies or collections of poetical effusions, descriptions, etc., strung together without any natural connection or necessary dependence.
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Rhapsodomancy
Divination by means of opening the works of a poet at hazard and reading the verse which first presents itself oracularly.
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Rhatany
or RATTANY, a half shrubby plant, of the natural order Polygaleæ, a native of the cold sterile tablelands of the Andes in Peru and Bolivia. It is called ratanhia in Peru. It is valued for the medicinal properties of the root, which are shared more or less by other species of the same genus, also natives of South America. In the British Pharmacopæia the dried roots of two species (Krameria triandra, Peruvian rhatany, and K. ixina, Savanilla rhatany) are officinal under the name Krameriæ Radix. The roots vary a good deal in size and thickness, but are always rough-looking, and reddish in color. The bark has a strongly astringent taste, and when chewed tinges the saliva red; the wood is nearly near tasteless. The dried root is a powerful astringent, and is employed in diarrhea, mucous discharges, passive hæmorrhages, and cases where an astringent or styptic action is indicated. The finely-powdered root is also a frequent constituent of toothpowders. Rhatany root is imported from various parts of South America, but chiefly from Lima. It is extensively imported into Portugal in order to communicate a rich red color to wines. Its peculiar properties are due to rhatanytannic acid, found in the root-bark to the extent of 20 per cent.; it also contains a red coloring matter.
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Rhea (Ornithology a genus)
in ornithology, a genus of Struthionidæ, or, if that family is divided, of Struthioninæ. Three toes are present, the neck is covered with feathers, and the tail is almost obsolete. They are sometimes called South American ostriches, but are smaller than the true ostrich, and the whole plumage is somber. There are two well-established species, R. americana, the common, anë R. darwini, Darwin's rhea, the former ranging from Bolivia, Paraguay, and the S. of Brazil down to Magellan's Straits, the latter inhabiting eastern Patagonia. R. macrorhyncha was given specific distinction by Dr. Sclater in 1860, but subequent investigations led him to believe sequent that the individuals belonged to a locally isolated race of R. americana, probably existing somewhere in the campos of the interior of northeastern Brazil.
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Rhead
LOUIS JOHN, an Anglo- American artist, born in Etruria, England, in 1857. Having studied art at the Art Training School, South Kensington, London, he came to the United States in 1883, as art manager for a large publishing house. He painted in oil and water colors. Besides exhibiting in many American and European galleries, he also illustrated numerous books, especially the Louis Rhead series of juvenile classics. He also contributed to newspapers and magazines frequent articles on fly fishing. Gold medals were awarded to him at Boston, in 1895 and at St. Louis, in 1904. He published "Bait Angling" (1907); "Book of Fish and Fishing" (1908); and "American Trout Stream Insects" (1916).
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