937 



RAMPAKT. 



RAPE, 



933 



chosen by Mohammed from its being generally spent by the ancient 

 Arabs in revelry and mirth and excessive drinking. 



RAMPART, probably from Ripa, an embankment, from which is 

 derived the Italian word "Riparo," and the 1 French word "Rempart," 

 is, in modern fortification, a mass of earth often nearly 80 feet thick, 

 surrounding a town or a military position, or constituting the faces of 

 an outwork, and supporting the parapet ; and its use is to protect the 

 interior of the place or work against any sudden enterprise of the 

 enemy, as well as by raising the parapet to give the defenders a 

 superiority of elevation with respect to the works of the besiegers. 



The ramparts of ancient fortresses were walls of stone or brick, 

 frequently from 60 to 100 feet high and 20 feet broad, including the 

 galleries made hi them : round or angular towers were formed at 

 intervals along the walls ; and, by means of the galleries, the defenders 

 could pass within the thickness of the wall from tower to tower. The 

 rampart was surmounted by a parapet seven feet high and two feet 

 thick, which was provided with battlements ; the rampart was loop- 

 holed, and, in order that the exterior foot of the high wall might be 

 defended, machicolations were formed at the top, particularly over the 

 entrances. [BASTIOX.] A great mass of earth was raised against the 

 interior side of the walls, nearly 38 high as the top, in places where 

 elevated ground or the enemy's works on the exterior allowed access 

 to the top of the wall to be gained in force : and on this mass the 

 cohorts were drawn up in order of battle. (Vitruvius, lib. L, cap. v.) 

 The modern rampart is surmounted by a parapet of earth, on the 

 interior side of which, towards the town, is a nearly level space, varying 

 in breadth from 35 to 40 feet, called the terreplein of the rampart ; 

 on this terreplein the artillery is placed : and in the rear of the guns 

 there ia room for the movements of the defenders and the conveyance 

 of the ammunition. The exterior and interior sides of the rampart 

 are formed with slopes making angles of about 45 degrees with the 

 horizon : or they are retained by revetments, or walls of brick or stone, 

 nearly upright, the exterior face of the rampart constituting the escarp 

 of the ditch in front. The rampart immediately surrounding a place 

 ia divided, in the direction of its length, into parts making salient or 

 re-entering angles with one another ; and these parts constitute the 

 faces and flanks of the bastions, and the curtains which connect the 

 latter together. Not more than 30 feet are allowed for the breadth of 

 the terrepleins of the ramparts of outworks, measured from the foot of 

 the parapets, in order that the enemy may not be able to form 

 batteries for artillery upon these terrepleins. The terrepleins of all 

 ramparts should have a small slope down, towards the interior, in order 

 that the rain-water may not lodge on them, and that the defenders 

 near the interior edge of the rampart may be effectually covered by the 

 parapet. The terreplein and the interior slope of a rampart, as well as 

 the surface of the parapet, are generally covered with turf. A rampart 

 whose exterior aide is of earth, or without a revetment of brick or 

 stone, might be easily ascended by an enemy at the time of an assault ; 

 and the palisades or fraizea which, in that case, would be planted hi it 

 for the purpose of impeding the progress of the enemy, might be 

 easily destroyed by artillery, so that the place would be liable to be 

 carried by a sudden assault. It is usual therefore always to have a 

 revetment either supporting the earth or detached (see REVETMENT), 

 except in cages where a coup-de-main is rendered impossible by wet 

 ditches. 



The relief, or height, of a rampart is regulated by the occasional 

 necessity of employing a fire of artillery from the rampart, and, at the 

 same time, a fire of musketry made over the glacis by men stationed 

 in the covered way beyond the ditch in front of the rampart : for this 

 purpose a line of fire from the rampart should pass three or four feet 

 above the crest of the glacis in ita front, in order that the wind of the 

 shot may not injure the defenders. The relief of a rampart with its 

 parapet may, therefore, be thus determined : On a drawing repre- 

 senting a vertical section of the works let a line be drawn from the 

 foot of the glacis, through a point taken at 3 or 4 feet above the crest 

 of that work, and let it be produced till it cuts the interior slope of 

 the parapet on the rampart : this intersection will give a point in the 

 axis of a gun placed on the rampart, or a point a few inches above the 

 sole of the embrasure, that ia, about 3J feet above the terreplein of 

 the rampart; and, because the artillery and the gunners are to be 

 protected by the parapet, if 74 or 8 feet be added to the height of the 

 terreplein of the rampart, above the ground, the sum will be the 

 required height of the crest of the parapet. 



RANGE. [GUNNERY; PROJECTILES.] 



RANGER (Ranyeator), an ancient officer in the king's forests and 

 parks, appointed by patent, and enjoying certain fees, perquisites, and 

 other advantages. His duty was of three kinds : 1, to make daily 

 perambulations, to see, hear, and inquire concerning any wrong doings 

 in the limit* of his bailiwick ; 2, to recover any of the beasta which 

 had strayed beyond the limits of the forest or chase ; and, 3, to present 

 all transgressions at the next forest-court. 



RANSOM, a word common to the French (rancon) and English 

 language*, the sense of which is a sum of money paid for the redemp- 

 tion of a captive. 



The paying of ransoms ia an event of frequent occurrence in the 

 middle-age history, and indeed may be traced in the history of the 

 older nations. Nothing appears on the first view more reasonable, or 

 Would more naturally arise out of the relations of two parties in a 



state of hostility, than that compensation of some kind should be made 

 for the restoration of prisoners, which compensation was most easily 

 estimated and discharged by means of the common medium of 

 exchange. In modem warfare we hear little of ransoms. It rarely 

 happens that a person is taken captive whom it is of importance to 

 redeem ; and when prisoners are to be redeemed, it is usually done by 

 way of exchange, and those who remain over, at the conclusion of a 

 war, are usually delivered up as a part of the concession of the party 

 in whose favour the difference is found to be. 



In the indentures of military service in the middle-age period, as in 

 the wars of Henry V., for instance, it was a usual stipulation that, 

 while the ransom of persons of inferior condition taken in the war was 

 allowed to those by whom they were captured, the ransom for persons 

 of rank was to belong to the king. 



The ransoms demanded for persons of eminence were often very 

 large sums of money ; so much beyond the power of any family, 

 however great, to command by the ordinary resources, that the persons 

 who held lands of them were called upon to contribute in proportion 

 to the extent of land held. It was one of the three casual occasions 

 of expense when this kind of extraordinary aid was demanded as of 

 prescriptive right by the sovereign, as in the case of Richard I. of 

 England, of David Bruce of Scotland, and of John of France ; the 

 other two being on occasion of knighting the eldest son, and of 

 marrying the eldest daughter. 



RANULA ia a tumour formed beneath the tongue, and probably 

 resulting from an obstruction of one or more of the ducts of the sub- 

 lingual salivary glands. The tumour is usually of a rounded form, 

 with a smooth polished surface similar to that of the adjacent mucous 

 membrane. When small, such a tumour produces so little inconveni- 

 ence, that it is usually not discovered till it has existed for some time. 

 As they increase in size however, these growths, though seldom 

 attended with pain, produce great inconvenience, by obstructing all the 

 movements of the tongue. They usually burst when they have 

 attained the size of a walnut, but they sometimes continue to increase 

 beyond this size, and have been seen large enough to contain a pint of 

 fluid. Their most usual contents are a transparent yellowish viscid 

 fluid, resembling in consistence the white of an egg ; sometimes, how- 

 ever, the material within them is much thicker, and sometimes mixed 

 with portions of earthy matter, similar to the larger masses by which 

 the salivary ducts are occasionally blocked up. 



The treatment of Ranula consists in making a free incision into the 

 front of the tumour, so as to let out all its contents. Means must then 

 be adopted to prevent the edges of the wound from uniting again; and the 

 best plan for this purpose ia to rub the surface of the cyst with nitrate 

 of silver (lunar caustic). If the wound be not prevented from unit- 

 ing, the tumour will form again, and the same proceedings must again 

 be adopted for its cure. 



RANZ DBS VACHES (' Kuhreihen ' in German) is the name of 

 certain simple melodies which are great favourites with the moun- 

 taineers of the Alps of Switzerland, and which are commonly played 

 upon a kind of long trumpet called the Alp-horn. The sounds of 

 these tunes, as well as the words which are set to them, are expressive 

 of the scenes and business of pastoral life; the hut, the roaring 

 torrent, the bellowing of the cattle, and the tinkling of the bells which 

 are suspended from their necks ; and the associations which they thus 

 recall to the minds of the natives when they are in foreign countries, 

 often produce that unconquerable longing for home which is said to 

 have been especially remarked among the Swiss soldiers on foreign 

 service ; for this reason, the bands of the Swiss regiments in foreign ser- 

 vice were forbidden to play the Ranz des Vaches. Theodore Zwinger, 

 of Basel, wrote, in 1710, a ' Dissertation on Nostalgia,' in which he 

 gave the music of the Kuhreiheu of Appenzell, which is one of the 

 oldest, and which was introduced into England in the time of Queen 

 Anne, who had it often played by her band. The words begin thus : 

 " Wander yha, wander yha, wander yha, Lo . . . . ba." Each of the 

 various pastoral districts, the Oberland, the Emmenthal, the Entlibuch, 

 the Appenzell, the Gruyere, has its Kuhreihen. The western or 

 Romand districts of Switzerland have their Rauz des Vaches in their 

 respective patois or dialects. 



A collection of the various Ranz dea Vachea and other Swiss airs has 

 been published : Sammluny von Schweizer Kuhreihen nnd Volkdiedern, 

 Bern, 1818 ; and they are included in the Allijemeiite Schweizer Lieder- 

 .I-II, published in 1851. 



RAPE ia the having unlawful carnal knowledge of a woman against 

 her will, and is a capital felony. A person under fourteen years of age 

 is in law presumed to be incapable of perpetrating this offence : this 

 presumption however is based on physical grounds entirely, so that 

 such a person, by assisting others of maturer age, may render himself 

 liable to the full penalty of the law as a principal in the second degree. 

 In the case of a female under ten years of age, whether the act takes 

 place with or without her consent, it is equally punishable as rape ; if 

 she be above ten and under twelve years of age, her consent reduces 

 the act to a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment and hard 

 labour for such term as may be awarded. 



An assault with intent to commit a rape is a misdemeanor punish- 

 able by imprisonment for any term not exceeding two years, and with 

 or without hard labour, at the discretion of the court before which the 

 offender ia convicted. Upon a trial for the capital offence, where the 



