ROLFE 



5051 



ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH 



When the downfall of the Girondists came, 

 Madame Roland continued to uphold their 

 cause, but in June, 1793, was arrested and 

 thrown into prison, where she spent the time 

 in writing the Memoires on which her fame 

 rests. In November she was executed, and be- 

 fore laying her head on the block she bowed to 

 the statue of liberty which had been set up 

 near the guillotine and exclaimed, "O Liberty! 

 what crimes are committed in thy name!" 

 When her husband, who had escaped to Rouen, 

 heard of her death he committed suicide. 



Consult Taylor's Life of Madame Roland; 

 Dobson's Four French Women. 



ROLFE, rolf, JOHN, one of the first English 

 settlers in America, celebrated in Virginia his- 

 tory as the first white man to raise tobacco, 

 and later as the husband of the famous Indian 

 princess, Pocahontas. He landed in Virginia in 

 1610, and when Captain Argall, the unscrupu- 

 lous deputy-governor of Virginia, held Poca- 

 hontas as hostage for the purpose of extorting 

 such terms from her father as he required, 

 Rolfe married her in the presence of her uncle 

 and two brothers. This event freed the colony 

 from the enmity of Powhatan and preserved 

 peace between the whites and Indians. A son 

 was born of the marriage. After the death of 

 Pocahontas in England, in 1617, Rolfe returned 

 to the colony and took an active part in its 

 affairs. See POCAHONTAS. 



ROLL 'ING MILL, a mechanical appliance for 

 rolling iron or steel into ingots, bars, rails and 

 plates for use by boiler makers, bridge builders, 

 platers and for general and railroad construc- 

 tional work. The mill contains a series of roll- 

 ers in pairs, through which the metal is passed 

 and rolled or pressed into the required shape. 

 The rollers, made of steel, are mounted on 

 frames capable of resisting enormous strain and 

 are driven by high-power horizontal, reversible 

 nes. According to the purpose for which 

 tin rolled metal is intended, the rollers are 

 grooved or flat surfaced. The rollers are geared 

 to each other by cogwheels, and each machine 

 is fitted with devices for feeding and guiding 

 the metal as it passes through the rollers. 



The use of rollers is universally found neces- 

 sary, even in the case of cast steel, which in 

 casting acquires certain weaknesses, such as 

 blowholes, caused by the gases generated. The 

 rolling process does away with blowholes, and 

 it strengthens and makes the finished product 

 homogeneous. If plates are required, white hot 

 steel is inserted between two rollers, revolving 

 in opposite directions. The result is a broad, flat 



sheet which is rolled until the required thick- 

 ness is reached. For making rods, the rollers 

 are grooved to the required shape. Armor- 

 plate rolling mills are specially designed for 

 massive work; the rollers are from ten to four- 

 teen feet long and from three to four feet in 

 diameter. 



For rolling rails, one of the most important 

 functions of rolling mills, the rolls are grooved 

 to produce the rails ready for use. The metal 

 is raised to white heat and then conveyed to 

 the rollers, through which it is passed seven 

 times. It is thus reduced to the form of ingots 

 or bars, about fifteen feet long and nine inches 

 square in section, which are later sheared into 

 two or three pieces according to the desired size 

 for the finished rail. These pieces, or blooms, 

 are again heated and then passed through the 

 rail mill, consisting of three sets of rollers. The 

 first, or roughing, rolls receive the blooms one 

 after another, and roll them into approximately 

 the form of rails. After being passed through 

 the roughing mills five times, the rails pass five 

 times through the intermediate rolls, from which 

 they are transferred to the finishing rolls. A 

 mill with three sets of rolls is known as a 

 "three-high;" if the intermediate rollers are 

 omitted, it is a "two-high." After they come 

 from the finishing rolls, the rails are cut into 

 sections of thirty or sixty feet, as desired, and 

 are lastly put through the camber rolls. Cam- 

 bering gives them a convexity just enough to 

 assure straightness when they cool. From the 

 time the cast ingot leaves the steel mill until 

 the finished rail is ready for shipment it is not 

 touched by human hands; it is handled only by 

 machinery. W.F.Z. 



ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH, that body of 

 Christians which accepts the Pope as its head 

 on earth and looks upon him as the representa- 

 tive of Christ and as the successor in <1 

 line of Saint Peter. It believes that the special 

 powers delegated by Christ to the chief of the 

 Apostles have descended to the Pope, and thai 

 he is therefore in matters of religion intulliNr 

 Any decree concerning faith or morals promul- 

 gated by the Pope, or by the Pope and tin 

 bishops in council, is held to be of necessity 

 free from error; for Roman Catholics b< 1 

 that by special protection of the Holy Spirit 

 their Church has kept unchanged the doctrines 

 laid down by Christ, and that it is impossible 

 for errors to creep into the official teachings of 

 the Church 



Doctrines and Sacraments. The doctrines or 

 beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church are set 



