CALMUCKS. 



CALORIC ENGINE. 



526 



the rate of eighteen feet and upwards during the year. For about sixty 

 degrees of W. latitude, from 120 to 180, this belt, according to Lieut. 

 Maury, is in the southern hemisphere, its northern edge coinciding 

 very nearly with the equator ; this southerly depression of the region 

 is probably occasioned by the great extent of open sea in the Pacific. 

 In the colloquial language of seamen the equatorial calms are-designated 

 the Doldrums. 



In the Atlantic region of calms known as the Variables, which 

 separates the N.-E. and S.-E. trade-winds, being produced by their 

 neutralisation of each other, a neutralisation so complete that far at 

 sea a candle burns without flickering, the calms do not continue 

 without interruption. Sometimes light breezes blow, especially from 

 the S. and S.S.W. Besides this the calms are commonly interrupted 

 every day by a wind which lasts a quarter of an hour or twenty 

 minutes. After noon a black and well-defined cloud is formed near 

 the E. horizon, which seems to announce a violent thunderstorm. 

 The cloud increases, a wind suddenly rises, and blows with great 

 violence for a few minutes. It is accompanied by a few drops of rain, 

 but in a few minutes the rain ceases, the air reassumes its clearness, 

 and the calm returns. These daily squalls, though of short duration, 

 enable the navigator to pass the region of calms, which even with this 

 aid always proves very disagreeable. Violent thunderstorms, however, 

 frequently actually occur. These calms, united to the immense 

 quantity of fucus or gulf-weed which is found W. of the Cape Verde 

 Islands, may have given rise to the opinion of the ancients that the sea 

 near the equator grows shallow, and becomes a swamp unsuited for 

 navigation. 



Parallel, in each hemisphere, to the equatorial belt of calms, are the 

 " horse latitudes " of seamen, which are zones of calms bordering, 

 respectively, the north-east trade-winds on the north, and the south- 

 east on the south, which also follow the declination of the sun ; along 

 the polar border of each is another region of precipitation, though the 

 rains are generally less constant than in the equatorial calms. 



(Horsburgh, India Directory; Rennell's Inrest, ; Humboldt; Mrs. 

 Somerville's Physical Geography ; Maury's Physical Geoyraphy of the 

 Sea). 



To witness and examine the actual phenomena of contact of the 

 winds blowing from opposite or different quarters, where the neutrali- 

 sation, or production of calm, begins, must always be difficult; partly 

 from our ignorance of the precise locality, and often from its inacces- 

 sibility when known. In the case of the trade-winds alluded to in 

 thin article, it must begin in variable planes, perpendicular or inclined 

 to the horizon. But of the phenomena attending the production of a 

 calm region at a great elevation, by the neutralisation by each other of 

 the north-east trade-wind, and the south-west wind above it, in planes 

 approximately horizontal, we have some particulars in Professor C. 

 Piazzi Smyth's ' Report of the Teneriffe Astronomical Exjierhnent of 

 1856,' pp. 480, 481. At the observing station of Mount Guajara, on 

 the Peak, the altitude of which was 8903 feet, in July and August, he 

 observed that the tops of the lower hills of the island, at about the 

 level of the trade-wind cloud, or 4000 feet, were swept by the wind 

 with terrific force ; " but above that height," he states, " the wind, 

 still preserving the same N.-E. direction, continually decreases in 

 strength, until it reaches a neutral stratum below the S.-W. wind, 

 which appears there to be always the direction of the upper current 

 in the atmosphere, in the summer at least, for which season alone 

 my descriptions are intended to apply. The height of this neutral 

 region would seem to vary much ; sometimes it was below, but much 

 more generally above 9000 feet. Hence we had more N.-E. wind than 

 S.-W. at Guajara ; but being in the neighbourhood of the neutral 

 stratum, neither wind was felt in great force, except on one occasion, 

 when for several hours in the evening the N.-E. wind blew with a 

 velocity of from twenty to thirty miles per hour." At his second 

 station of " Alta Vista," at the height of 10,700 feet, there was on the 

 whole less wind than at Guajara, and it was more evenly balanced 

 between the two directions. In his work entitled ' Teneriffe, an 

 Astronomer's Experiment,' p. 382, Prof. Smyth adds, that on September 

 19th, when he left the mountain, from the upper station "the N.-E. trade, 

 the characteristic of a Canarian summer, was gone, and the S.-W. wind, 

 though blowing on the mountain-top, had not yet descended to take 

 possession for the winter of those lower zones ; where a meteorologic 

 interregnum was in consequence evidently prevailing. The air, how- 

 ever, was exquisitely transparent." [Wrsos, TRADE.] 



CALMUCKS, or KALMUCKS, is the name given by the Russians 

 to one of the principal branches of that division of the Mongols which 

 bears the general name of Oloth, or Oirat. This nation is more widely 

 dispersed over the globe than any other uncivilised people, the Arabs 

 not excepted. Calmuck tribes occur over all the countries of Upper 

 Asia between 38 and 62 N. lat., and from the most northern bend of 

 the Hoang-ho to the banks of the Volga. We are acquainted with four 

 principal branches. The Olbth inhabited chiefly the centre of these 

 countries, to the south and north of the Thian-Shan range, in the 

 present Chinese government of Hi, whence they extended their con- 

 quests over the neighbouring tribes during the 17th century, and 

 founded an empire of great extent Mini power, which was destroyed by 

 the Chinese . i,i| rni K.ing-hi in 1698. Upon this event, the name of 

 016th merged in that of Zoongurs, another numerous nation of the 

 Mime origin, which inhabited the adjacent countries. The Zoongars also 



were for a short time formidable to the neighbouring tribes, especially 

 the Khalkas, or proper Mongols : their empire was destroyed by the 

 Chinese in 1757. By these continual and unsuccessful wars both 

 nations have nearly been annihilated, and their names have almost dis- 

 appeared. The Turbut, or Derbet, forming the third principal branch, 

 had long before these events submitted to the Chinese emperors ; and, 

 united with the remnant of the Zoongars, they still inhabit the 

 countries about the lake of Koo-koo-nor, and along the Hoaug-ho 

 river, where it forms its great northern bend. They are considered 

 and treated by the Chinese rather as allies than as subjects. A few 

 also joined themselves to the Toorgoots. 



The fourth branch of the Oloth, which received the name of Cal- 

 mucks from the Russians, is properly called Toorgoot, and inhabited 

 the countries west of those of the proper Oloth. But during the con- 

 tinual wars which they had to wage with these more powerful neigh- 

 bours, they began to extend their excursions towards the west, and at 

 last settled, with the permission of the Russians, in the steppes which 

 extend between the Volga and the Ural, in 1672. There they remained 

 nearly a century ; but in 1771, after having repeatedly been invited by 

 the Chinese to return to their native country, the greatest part of them 

 suddenly left the Russian territories, and returned, by a march of eight 

 months, to the banks of the river Ili, where the countries whose 

 inhabitants had been destroyed in the wars between the Chinese and 

 Zoongars were assigned to them by the Chinese. Their number was 

 estimated at 50,000 families, or 300,000 souls. The smaller portion of 

 the nation, estimated at 12,000 families, remained in Russia, and their 

 descendants yet inhabit the country betwixt the Don, the Volga, and 

 the Kuma. 



In the form of their body the Calmucks resemble the Mongols, 

 and the languages of the two nations differ perhaps not more than 

 the Italian and the Spanish ; but the proper Mongols have a rich 

 literature, while that of the Calmucks seems to be limited to a few 

 compositions or translations respecting the tenets of Buddhism, a 

 religion which has been embraced by all the nations of Mongol 

 origin. 



The Calmucks have no fixed abodes, but movable huts, called 

 kybitkas, which they carry from one place to another, in order to be 

 always near the best pasture for their herds. They live entirely upon 

 animal food, and do not cultivate the ground. They have large num- 

 bers of camels, horses, and sheep, but not many cattle. Their horses 

 are of a middling size, very strong and swift. Their sheep are of the 

 same kind as those of the Khirgis, with large tails and good wool, of 

 which the women make different stuffs for dresses, blankets, coverings 

 for the kybitkas, &c. 



They are not the immediate subjects of the princes in whose coun- 

 tries they live, but have their own hereditary chiefs, and an hereditary 

 nobility, to whom they are much attached, and to whom they pay 

 strict obedience. Their military or marauding excursions, to which 

 they are much inclined, owing to their wandering habits of life, make 

 them very troublesome to their neighbours. 



CALOMEL. [MERCURY, CHLOIUDE or.] 



CALORIC. [HEAT.] 



CALORIC ENGINE. In the article Am ENGINE an account was 

 given of certain contrivances intended to have the power of steam- 

 engines without the use of steam. Most of the machines there noticed 

 require the [action of air, wholly or in part heated ; but a reference 

 was made to the present article for a brief account of certain air- 

 engines which have acquired some notoriety under the name of caloric 

 engines. 



The theory of caloric engines is by new means a new one. Besides 

 the inventions of Stirling, Von Ratheu, and Randolph, described in the 

 article just quoted, there have been many others depending on an 

 analogous principle. Sir George Cayley made many attempts in this 

 direction. In 1827 Messrs. Parkinson and Crossley followed in the 

 same track. Mr. Parsey has made many experiments, and taken out 

 more than one jxvtent, for hot-air engines. One of his patents, under 

 date 1854, comprised the employment of an improved pump, for com- 

 pressing or exhausting air ; an aerometer or movable reservoir for storing 

 air, and giving it out again imder pressure ; and a mode of heating 

 the working cylinder of an engine. Mr. Shaw, an American inventor, 

 has brought forward some contrivances intended (or hoped) to obtain 

 more power from air than from steam. His engine comprises an 

 oscillating horizontal cylinder, an air-compressing chamber, heating 

 tubes, and various other adjuncts. The heat and smoke from a 

 furnace are made to give up a portion of their caloric to air contained 

 within certain tubes. An air-pump forces air from the atmosphere 

 into a compressor, where it is maintained at b'O Ib. on the square inch, 

 and whence it passes into the tubes. There are many other parts of 

 the apparatus, all contributing to the main purpose of moving a piston 

 in a cylinder, thereby giving rotatory motion to a shaft. But there 

 remains the objection so fatal to all such engines that air requires 

 the same amount of power to compress it as is obtained aftei v 

 from the same air in the compressed state. Among all these inventors, 

 however, the one who has bestowed the largest amount of attention on 

 caloric engines is Captain Ericsson, to whose contrivances we shall at 

 once proceed. 



Ericsson's inventions, some patented and others not, have been 

 brought before public attention during about a quarter of a century, his 



