Each of these 10 subjects appears in only one of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. None is long enough to carry a page by itself, so they are gathered here by letter. Anything that grows moves out to a page of its own.
in spinning, a pendent piece of wood for twisting and winding the fibers drawn from the distaff, or the pin used in spinning wheels for for twisting the thread, and on which the thread, when twisted, is wound. It is applied applied also to a measure of yarn: in cotton a spindle of 18 hanks is 15,120 yards; in linen a spindle of 24 heers is 14,400 yards.
Only in Collier's New Encyclopedia
in botany, a sharp process from the woody part of a plant. It differs from a prickle, which proceeds from the bark. A spine sometimes terminates a branch, h, and sometimes is axillary, growing at an angle formed by the branch or leaf with the stem. The wild apple and pear are armed with spines; the rose, bramble, gooseberry, etc., are armed with prickles. The term is applied in zoölogy to a stout, rigid, and pointed process of the integument of an animal, formed externally by the epidermis and internally of a portion of the cutis or corresponding structure.
Only in Collier's New Encyclopedia
in mineralogy: (1) The type species of a group of minerals called the spinel group, crystallizing in the isometric system, and being compounds of protoxides and sesquioxides with the typical formula ROR₂O₃. (2) A mineral ocurring in crystals of octahedral habit, and very rarely massive. Hardness, 8.0; sp. gr., 3.5-4.1; luster, vitreous to splendent, sometimes dull; color, many shades of red, also blue, green, yellow, brown, and black; sometimes nearly white, or colorless; transparent to opaque; fracture, conchoidal. Composition: When pure, alumina, 72.0; magnesia, 28.0=100, corresponding with the formula, MgO Al2O3; but the magnesia is often partly replaced by other protoxides, and the alumina by sesquioxides, giving rise to many varieties. Dana thus distinguishes them: (1) Ruby or magnesia-spinel; with sp. gr. 3.52-3.58; (a) spinel-ruby, deep red: (b) balas-ruby, rose-red; (c) rubicelle, yellow or orange-red; (d) almandine, violet. (2) Ceylonite, or iron-magnesia spinel = pleonaste, containing much iron; color, dark green to black. (3) Magnesia-lime-spinel; color, green. (4) Chlorospinel; color, grass-green, with the iron constituent as sesquioxide. (5) Picotite, containing over 7 per cent. of oxide of chromium.
Only in Collier's New Encyclopedia
JOEL ELIAS, an American educator and author, born in New York in 1875. He was educated at Columbia and Harvard and from 1899 to 1911 was successively tutor, adjunctprofessor, and professor of comparative literature at Columbia University. He took an active interest in politics as a Progressive Republican, was chairman of the board of directors of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and in 1919 became a member of the board of directors of a New York publishing house. During the World War he was a major of infantry. He wrote: "A History of Literary Criticism in the Renaissance" (1899); "The New Criticism" (1911); "The New Hesperides and Other Poems" (1911); "Creative Criticism" (1917). He also edited "Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century (3 vols. 1908-1909); "Temple's Essays" (1909), etc.
Only in Collier's New Encyclopedia
Sheets of silver, Britannia-metal, tin, and other malleable metals are, by motion and pressure, caused to flow or conform to a great variety of shapes. The process depends on the dexterity of the workman, the malleability of the metal, and the time given for the flow of its particles; for it must not be too hard pressed, or the sheet will fracture. Metals are spun in a lathe; a chuck or mould of the article to be made is fastened to the face-plate, and the disk of sheet metal is pressed against it by the fixed centre. An ordinary rest serves as a purchase for the operator to apply the requisite pressure with his pressing-tools and burnishers. Section chucks, consisting of a central core and surrounding sections, are employed when the nature of the work will not permit a solid chuck to be used. By means of these almost any description of vessel is easily moulded in sheet metal, when the core, being withdrawn, the remaining sections are taken out.
Only in The Encyclopedia of Founding
spi-re'a, a genus of plants bebelonging to the rose family. There are about fifty species found chiefly in the north temperate zone. Various species of the United States are known as meadow-sweet, hard hack, queen of the meadows, goat's beard, steeple bush, bridal wreath, nine-bark, etc. The flowers occur usually in ornamental clusters or panicles, white, pink, or rose colored. Several species are valued as dooryard shrubs.
Only in Aiton's Encyclopedia
in geometry, a curve which may be generated by a point moving along a straight line, in the same direction, according to any law, while the straight line revolves uniformly about a fixed point, always continuing in the same plane. The portion generated during one revolution is called a spire. The moving point is the generatrix of the curve, the fixed point is the pole of the spiral, and the distance from the pole to any position of the generatrix is the radius vector of that point. The law according to which the generatrix moves along the revolving line is the law of the spiral, and determines the nature of the curve. Any position of the revolving line, assumed at pleasure, is called the initial line. Spirals are known by the names of their inventors, or by terms derived from the properties by which they are characterized; as, the spiral of Archimedes, hyperbolic spirals, logarithmic spirals, parabolic spirals, etc. Also a helix or curve which winds round a cylinder like a screw. SPIRES. See SPEYER.
Only in Collier's New Encyclopedia
A conveying device composed of a central shaft and surrounding spiral screw, which, when revolved within a trough or pipe, presses out at the mouth whatever material is inserted at the opposite end. This mode of conveying was first invented by Archimedes, who was born at Syracuse in Sicily, about 287 B.C. He used it for raising water from the Nile. See CONVEYERS.
Only in The Encyclopedia of Founding
A lamp in which alcohol is burned. These lamps are employed for their heat rather than for light--especially in the arts and manufactures, air-blast and other contrivances helping to make them more effective.
Only in The Encyclopedia of Founding
The name bestowed upon the French form of spiritualism, which was in the main founded on the doctrines of "Allan Kardec" (M. Rivail), (q.v.) Spiritism differed from spiritualism as expounded in Britain, America and elsewhere, chiefly in that it included among its tenets the doctrine of reincarnation. Allan Kardec, who prior to his adoption of spiritualistic creeds, about 1862 had been an exponent of animal magnetism and phrenology, based his new teachings on spirit revelations received through clairvoyants, and so popular were these teachings that they rapidly spread over the Continent. In Britain, however, spiritism obtained but little hold, its only exponent being Miss Anna Blackwell, who endeavoured without success to establish the doctrine of reincarnation in this country. Spiritism and spiritualism must not be confused. since the adherents of each section were opposed to the tenets of the other, and even in France , where spiritism obtained the most footing, there was a distinct spiritualistic party who looked askance at the doctrine of reincarnation. The word spiritist is sometimes applied to one who seeks only the physical phenomena, and neglects the religious and philosophic aspect of spiritualism.
Only in An Encyclopaedia of Occultism