1(7 TIIKA. 



explanation upon the principle of the absorption or roudering lau nt .-' 

 heat in the thawing procesa. At that place the snow is often wen 

 melting on the mountains above the town, at an elevation of 3000 feet, 

 while it continues very cold and there is not the least sign of thaw in 

 the valley of the river Inn below. It U then popularly said that the 

 south wind is driving the cold into the valley ; and this saying seems 

 to involve the truth. The air above will be greatly cooled down by 

 the abstraction of itu heat in the melting of the mow, and. thus 

 becoming heavier, will descend in the atmosphere and maintain for a 

 time the low temperature in the valley below. 



The overflowing of rivers by the dissolution of the mow and ice on 

 the mountains above their sources is well known [RIVKRB, col. ll'.'J, 

 and to the liquefaction of the ice formed by the previous congelation 

 of water which has introduced itaelf into the fissures of rocks is to 

 be ascribed the occasional severance of large mimwi from the sides of 

 mountains ; the expansion of the water in freezing having destroyed 

 the cohesion, so that the parts are only held together by the ice, and 

 on the liquefaction of this the disunion u complete. 



Two pieces of thawing ice, if brought into contact, adhere and 

 become one ; at a place where liquefaction was proceeding, congelation 

 suddenly occurs. This is the phenomenon and process of rryetatim, 

 already treated of in the article Irx. The view of the thawing or 

 melting of ice taken by M. Person, that it is a gradual process, 

 resembling that of wax and metals, and not really a sudden one, and 

 its adoption by Professor James Forbes, as well as the objections to 

 it urged by Professor James Thomson, have been noticed in the 

 article ICE. Person's original paper, ' On the Latent Heat of 

 Fusion of Ice,' will be found in the ' Comptee Rendus' of the Royal 

 Academy of Sciences of Paris, for April 29, 1850, voL xxx., p. 020. 

 The evidence he adduces of the supposed viscosity of ice, 

 intermediate between the states of rigid solidity and perfect fluidity, 

 consists solely of an amount of latent heat which a high authority 

 agrees with us in considering to be much within the probable errors of 

 the delicate experiments required. The application made by Professor 

 Tyndnll of the principle of regelation, renders the plasticity of ice in 

 the mass quite intelligible, without the necessity of attributing a 

 viscous property to that substance, the existence of which is negatived 

 by all the other properties which it possesses. 



Although the terms thawing and freezing were originally applied 

 only to the solidification and re-liquefaction of water, by variations of 

 temperature, and derivatively to those of other fluids in ordinary use, 

 their sense has become extended in the progress of that more precise 

 knowledge of natural things which is called science, to denote also, 

 generally, the solidification and re-liquefaction of liquids not commonly 

 observed in the solid condition. We speak, for example, of the freezing 

 and thawing of mercury ; and not only so, but the terms thawing and 

 freezing are sometimes used to express the circumstances of the 

 melting and re-solidification of bodies which are ordinarily solid 

 solid, that is, at common temperatures, an expression which, as usually 

 employed, includes a considerable thermometric range from above the 

 freezing to below the boiling point of water, and is even extended, 

 though indefinitely, somewhat below the former and considerably 

 above the latter, though not to a red heat, or a temperature at which 

 light is evolved. Thus these terms have been applied to the melting 

 and crystallisation of glass. In like manner, the term fusion, originally 

 employed with reference to the liquefaction of bodies which are solid 

 at common or much higher temperatures, has come to be applied, as 

 equivalent to that of thawing, to the melting after solidification of 

 substances which are ordinarily liquid. In this manner we speak of 

 the fusion of ice, as well as that of wax or of copper; and Dr. 

 Faraday has described, in the paper referred to above, an experi- 

 ment in which layers of ice are produced "of greater and less 

 fnfbU 



TIIKA. [TiA.] 



THKATINS, or TEATINS, an order of monks founded at Rome 

 in 1.V24, principally by Oianpietro Oaraua, who was then archl-i 

 Chieti, in Naples, the Latin name of which is Teate, and wh 

 wards became pope under the title of Paul IV. The institution was 

 ied at the time of its foundation by the reigning pope, Clement 

 VII. : and a final rule, or code of regulations, drawn up by a general 

 chapter of the order, was authorised by Clement VIII. in 1604. The 

 Theatins were principally established in Italy anil in ; 

 which latter country they were brought in 1044, and where they sub- 

 lilted till the Revolution of 17KSI. Their dress was a black cloak and 

 CMnock with white sleeves; and the principal peculiarity of their 

 institution was that they affected to subsist not only upon alms, but 

 Ims bestowed upon them without being asked for. They pro- 

 . however, considerable support in this way, and they were at 

 one time enabled to maintain missions in Georgia, Circassia, Miugrelia, 

 and other parts of Asia. Their history ha* been written by John 

 Baptist Tuning, under the title of ' Annnl-s Theatinoriim.' Tin i 



iieatin nuns (in French, Tlcntinci), so called from having been 

 ! by Pope Gregory XV. under the direction of the Theatin 

 i original and proper designation having been Sisters of the 

 Immaculate Conception. A notice of a controversy between the Thea- 

 tins and the Jesuit*, which was kept up for a great port of the 17th 

 century, is given by Bayle, in a note to his article on 'Ignatius 

 '- :' -' 



THEATl: IM 



Till: \TI;r. ..i:.. m the Latin ihtitnn, which is from the Greek 

 9tdifor. a place for swing '), a word adopted in all modern language* 

 to signify a building appropriated to dramatic representations. The 

 oldest edifices of this claw are those of the Greeks and Romans, for it 

 was with them that the European drama originated, and, in point of 

 magnitude, the Greek and Roman theatre* surpassed the most spacious 

 of their temples. The enormous extent of many of the ancient 

 theatres, and the prodigious solidity of their construction, are attested 

 by the numerous remains of such edifices, which have been explored 

 not only in Greece and Italy, but also in Asia Minor. Of some of 

 them indeed little can now be traced, but others are sufficiently perfect 

 to convey a clear idea of the arrangement and general appearance of 

 the structure in its original state ; that is, however, merely as regards 

 the space appropriated to the spectators, for scarcely anything r. 

 t .1 e x plain what is most difficult, and, as regards the dramatic exhil 

 most important of all to understand, namely, the stage itself, including 

 under that term the whole space requisite for the accommodat 

 the performers, and for the preparation of the exhibition 1.. i 

 audience. Owing to the want of any evidence of the kind a! 

 by the buildings themselves, and to the very little that can now be 

 gathered from the scanty notices of ancient writers, we have no < 

 knowledge of many things which now can only lie conjectured. The 

 character of the performance has been spoken of under DRAMA. 



The circumstances that are mentioned for our admiration, and as 

 proofs of the magnificence and suinptuousnees of some of the a; 

 theatres, prove how deficient in scenic illusion and stage effect tin- 

 performances must have been. Whether it be at all exaggerated or 

 not, it is evident from what Pliny (' Nat. Hist.,' xxxvi., c. 15) - 

 the theatre of Scaurus, at Rome, that the srcna was a mere an 

 tural facade, unmeaning iu itself, though lavishly embellished with 

 marble columns and statues with no fewer than 3(H> of the i 

 arranged in three tiers, and 3000 of the latter, a most incredible num- 

 ber, sur[>assing that of a modern audience. Pliny pn/xles us still 

 more when he says that the middle of the scena (meaning the 

 of the three orders) was of glass, "vitro." The actors it is evident 

 must have appeared mere pigmies upon a stage of such enormous 

 extent, with a number of statues behind them. This must always 

 have been in some degree the case, since even in moderate-sized 

 ancient theatres the stage was enormously wide in comparison with 

 what it is in the very largest modern theatres. The scena too was 

 always a permanent architectural erection, incapable of change. It 

 has been supposed that, besides the permanent scena, t; 

 employed, occasionally at least, moveable painted scenes, capal 

 being let down before it. Yet while this can be only vaguely inferred, 

 the presumption against it is founded both on ito impractical >ilr 

 its extreme improbability. If they even did, as some supp 

 scene-pointing, it is scarcely conceivable that they should h 

 painted moveable scenes on canvas, which on the average must have 

 been 200 feet in width, especially where the stage itself was so shallow 

 and confined at its sides, and without any space for appai 

 machinery over it. Vitruvius does indeed mention, in the proem to 

 his seventh book, Agntharchus as a scene-painter, and Demoeritus and 

 Anaxagoras as writers on scenography and perspective ; but it is with 

 .idleness of expression, that it is difficult to draw any conclusion 

 from his words. Of the former he merely says " scenam fecit." which 

 probably means no more than that he was one of the first who intro- 

 duced some sort of decoration on the scena, or back wall of the stage, 

 where, if there was at any time painting at all, it could only hav 

 very partial, and as accessory embellishment to that general facade. 

 The fixed arrangement of the scena itself, with three distinct ent 

 assigned to the performers according to their rank in tl 



one being for the principal characters, the otheis for th. 

 posed to arrive on one side from the port, on the other from the 

 country, was not only an awkward conventionalism in itself, but an 

 expedient which shows how imjwrfect the ancient st.-ige must hue 

 lieen. notwithstanding its alleged 'magnificence. What there , 

 painted scenery at all was probably confined to two lYnmnr (u-fpdVroi) 

 at the sides or ends of the stage, which served as " wings," .-md which 

 were upright triangular frames made to revolve upon a < 

 so that any of the three sides could be turned towards the audit i 

 very scanty change of scenery at the best, and only sufficient t 

 where the action was supposed to take place. 



From the use of the term Atdrea it has been generally con- 

 tint the whole stage was concealed by a curtain, l-.ih M \ taw '<> the 

 ncemcnt of the performance mid whenever it was requisite to 

 make any change in the decorations. But we agree with \VineUl- 

 m. inn, that such could not possibly have been the case, because in the 

 first place it could hardly have been practicable, and in the next 

 unnecessary as regarded the i hitectiiral i 



But even admitting that tie re was painted scenery, and that it was not 

 inferior to that of our own : iicr in regard t<> truth oi 



spective or to anything else, it still must have fallen far short of the 

 latter in effect, if only for th" tea-cm that the performances took 

 by daylight. At the best the illusion could have lu-cn but. 

 ini|*rfect a strange mixture of the artili'-nl with the real. Un- 

 natural light* and shadows and the painted ones must frequently havii 

 licrii in eonti each other ; nor was it p.-...-il>le to nnim 



efl'ectfl of light, as in our theatres, by either increasing or diuiiuinhing 



