CLIO. 



CLOACA 



greater and greater, the mind swells gradually with the successive 

 object*, ami in iU progress has a very sensible pleasure. Precisely for 

 the same reason, word) expressive of such objects ought t<> lie placed 

 in the aame order." The effect of a climax would seem to be more 

 simply accounted for by the consideration of the state into which the 

 mind of a reader or hearer in necessarily thrown by an emphatic asser- 

 tion in a vehement or impassioned discourse ; he naturally expects that 

 the next assertion, if another is to follow, will involve something still 

 stronger or more exciting that it will constitute some addition to 

 what has been already said else why should it be uttered at all ? He 

 is gratified, of course, when this expectation is fulfilled, and would be 

 the reverse if it were not. The latter effect is produced by what is 

 called an M>U-climax, the slight shock of the disappointment occasioned 

 by which is sometimes, in suitable circumstances, made available to 

 produce the emotion of the ludicrous. Lord Rames (chap, xviii. 1) 

 reckons what he calls a tiimaje in tonnd and defines to be the " order 

 of words or members gradually increasing in length," as one of the 

 beauties of language. One example of this which he gives is the 

 following from Cicero : " Quicum qvuestor f ueram ; quicum me sors 

 consuetudoque ma jorum ; quicum me deorum hominumque iudicium 

 conjunxerat." When the climax in sense and the climax in sound 

 coincide in the same passage, he afterwards observes (chap, xviii. 3), 

 " the concordance of sound and sense is delightful ; the reader is con- 

 scious not only of pleasure from the two climaxes separately, but of an 

 additional pleasure from their concordance, and from finding the sense 

 so justly imitated by the sound." We may remark that, although an 

 anti-climax, except to produce a ludicrous effect, must always be 

 regarded as a stumble in composition, and is therefore to be avoided, 

 a climax is the favourite ornament of an artificial and mouthing style 

 of rhetoric. A natural writer will commonly come out with the 

 strongest thing he has to say at once, instead of cautiously advancing 

 to it by this sort of measured dance. (For an example of climax from 

 Demosthenes, see ' Demetrius Phal.' Tltol 'Epumitas.) 



CLIO. [MtSES.] 



CLIPPER. This word has become so thoroughly engrafted on our 

 nautical vocabulary, that it claims some attention. It is used to de- 

 signate a new construction of vessels, built rather for speed than for 

 their carrying qualities, and seems to have originated principally in the 

 north of England, and also in Scotland, where a spirited ship-builder 

 ventured, a few years since, to leave the trodden path, and enter upon 

 a new field of enterprise, by adding to the mercantile marine specimens 

 of naval architecture which at once met with public approval ; and 

 from the increased speed of those vessels, they were styled " Aberdeen 

 Clippers. ' 



Mathematical science has been tortured to produce a knowledge of 

 correct principles as applicable to the water-lines of a ship [NAVAL 

 AHCHITECTCRE], and the forms of vessels have undergone changes 

 accordingly. [WAVE PRIHCIPLE.] Perhaps few single circumstances 

 have operated more powerfully or more rapidly in producing these 

 changes than the arrival in the Solent of the celebrated yacht called 

 the America, in 1851. Her peculiarities were striking. In the first 

 place, all the old seamen's notions of a " good full bow and long floor to 

 catch her in a sea-way," were at once confounded by the plain fact that 

 here was a vessel built with her greatest beam abaft the centre of the 

 ship, which would outsail all our fastest yachts with the greatest ease ; 

 and whereas in ordinary vessels they required considerable buoyancy 

 forward to raise them in a sea-way, this, in the American clipper, 

 WM effected by the placing of the centre of gravity of the whole mass 

 further aft than usual. And again : a good deep fore-foot had been 

 deemed essential to any vessel intended to have weatherly qualities. 

 In Ihe America, however, this was very much diminished, and such 

 weatherly powers were obtained by means of a deepness of keel. And 

 further, the qualification of being quick in stays, which our vague 

 notion* had generally attributed to the action and adjustment of the 

 ails alone, was in the America secured by her having a very deep heel, 

 so that she drew very considerably more water aft than forward. But 

 that which seemed most to astonish the nautical world was the form 

 of the water-line under the vessel's counter. In the America, this 

 water-line altogether may be compared to the shape of the longitiidinal 

 lection of a pear, the stalk of which might represent the bowsprit. It 

 Is even difficult to this day for ordinary sailors to understand the 

 theory of the principle on which her sailing qualities depended. 



Those who have been accustomed to combine, in their ideas of 

 necessary form for swiftness, the cod's head and mackarel's toil, saw at 

 once in the America those assumed requirement* disputed ; and even 

 the more thoughtful, remembering the experiments of Colonel Beaufoy 

 (who demonstrated that a taper spar, with truncated ends, required 

 less power to force it through the water with the large end foremost 

 than with the small end), were at a loss to account for the success 

 obtained by the America.'with such apparently heavy after lines. But 

 a little consideration will remove all doubt ; nor need we, in reality, 

 relinquish the good old axioms which attributed speed hi vessels to 

 ' ing n (fowl entry, and the avoidance of dead water. The good 

 entry of the present time, as certainly introduced into England by the 

 America, may be said to consist in a considerable lengthening of the 

 proportion! of the bow, which throws the heel of the fore-mast further 

 from the fore- foot, and thus ease* a vessel in a sea-way. (In some of 

 our coasting schooners and brigs of the old school, the fore-mast seems 



almost to step on the fore-foot, and the same defect may be seen in 

 several of our old line-of-battle ships.) With regard to the after-lines, 

 or, as usually called, the run of a ship, such care is taken to | 

 her from dragging dead water after her, from faulty deliverance of 

 the fluid displaced, that we have now in our mercantile marine a largo 

 number of font-nailing ships, built professedly with regard I. 

 special qualifications, and to which the term clipper is given by 

 universal consent. But the chief popular error (which still influences 

 many, and is a bar to the full development of greater perfection in the 

 "lines of a ship) consists in the taking of the form of the water-surface 

 line only (as many did with the America), and pronouncing a run 

 defective or otherwise, according as this line appeared rounded or 

 straight : but it must be remembered, that the progress of a fast- 

 sailing ship, and the consequent displacement of water, creates a sort 

 of imperfect vacuum, into which tin- fluid from the bends of the ship 

 rushes; and the more nearly straight these lines can be mailf. tin- 

 more easily is this vacuum annihilated, and dead water prevented : 

 in other words, the faster the ship will sail. From the above it will 

 be apparent that water may be delivered along the after part of a hip' H 

 hull from every possible direction, and speed may therefore be looked 

 for as attainable by not only the sharp deep Kyde wherry, but the 

 flat-bottomed ditkJike galliot. The former delivers the water hori- 

 zontally, the latter vertically. The question of mere speed, ami the 

 power of being weatherly, are of a totally different nature. 



To show that there is room for improvement in some of our most 

 noted ships, the following occurred to the writer of this : One of the 

 fastest of the Liverpool Australian clipper-ships was, two or three 

 years since, in a dry dock. On examination of her lines, a remark 

 escaped him, that she would sail better stern foremost. On her 

 return voyage, it chanced that peculiarity of weather and unavoiclal >le 

 circumstances prolonged her homeward passage to above 100 days. 

 Prompted by curiosity to examine her copper and water-line telirn 

 afloat, the writer, as she lay in the Mersey, had an excellent opportunity, 

 and found that from the stem-piece all along the side of the ship, the 

 copper appeared almost burnished with the friction of the water during 

 so long a continuous and rapid propulsion; but just under the mi/en- 

 chains appeared the " plague-spot," where, instead of the brightness 

 seen elsewhere towards the fore-part of the ship, the copper began to 

 show tarnish, until, within a s]iace of certainly not more than six feet, 

 the copper was quite green and corroded, indisputably indicating a 

 diminution of friction, or a hollowneas ; and consequently (as further 

 search proved), a serious amount of unnecessary dead water, and 

 hindrance to speed, in this still fine and handsome well-known clipp- 1-. 

 Hollow lines forward are said to contribute towards speed, but it is a 

 question if they are admissible abaft. 



The word clipper is only applied to vessels engaged in mercantile 

 enterprise, and is not to be confounded with the term yacht. [YACHT.] 



CLOA'CjE, large arched drains, or sewers, formed under the streets 

 of some ancient Roman cities. The most remarkable were the cloaca; 

 of Rome, large portions of which still remain in excellent repair. 

 These cloaca) are doubtless of high antiquity, and tradition assigns 

 their origin to the time of the first Tarquin. (Livy, i. 38.) According 

 to Livy (v. 55), the chief subterranean passages originally followed the 

 lines of the streets and public places ; but in the hurry of rebuilding 

 the city after the Gallic invasion, the old lines of streets were neglected, 

 and the houses were often built across the drains. 



The cloaca; of Rome consisted of several branches, which ran in the 

 low part between the hills: these branches fell into one very large 

 arched drain, constructed of solid blocks of stone, called the Cloaca 

 Maxima, said to have been built by Tarquinius Superbus (Livy, i. 56), 

 and repaired, in later times, by Cato the Censor and his colleague in 

 office. A portion of this cloaca is visible near the arch of Janus. It 

 was formerly continued towards the Tiber, passing by the Corinthian 

 peripteral temple, called the Temple of Vesta, close to which it ; 

 nated in the Tiber, at a point believed to be the Pulchrum Littim, so 

 called from the sides of the river having a walled embankment with 

 steps. The arched drain of the Cloaca Maxima is fifteen feet wide mid 

 thirty high (these dimensions include the masonry), with three arches 

 in contact one within another: in some parts there are raised ]-itl, , 

 along the sides of the cloaca, and in the walls are stone brackets to 

 support the ends of the waste pipes of the fountains. The three arches 

 are still in excellent order, and exhibit not only a thorough knowledge 

 of the construction of the arch, but admirable workmanship. Nicbuhr 

 says that the innermost vault forms a semicircle 18 palms (of 879 

 inches each) in width, and of the same height. This vault is inclosed 

 within a second, and this again within a third. The stone employed, 

 called peperino, is a greenish stone with black specks. The blocks are 

 74 palms long and 4^ high. The same writer is of opinion that the 

 Cloaca Maxima was only constructed to drain the Velabrum and the 

 valley of the Circus Maximus. (' Hint, of Home.') In the year ]"!.! a 

 part of the Cloaca Maxima was discovered in the Forum, at the depth 

 of thirty feet from the surface, constructed in a similar manner to the 

 part which is seen near the temple of Janus (Nardini, p. 21 n. lib. v., 

 cap. vii., regio viii.) Nielmhr, on the authority of Ficaroni, says it was 

 constructed of travertine stone, or tufa, and he thinks it of gr 

 antiquity than the peperino construction. Smaller drains of wood or 

 clay intersected the city in every direction, and communicated with 

 the Cloaca Maxima, and drain-pipes or tubes carried off the refuse of 



