EIDER DOWN. 



EJECTMENT. 



the upper end of one of theae are** WM a sitting-room which faced the 

 door lading to the great court ; and over thin and the other chambers 

 were the apartment* of the upper tory. Here were also two small 

 gateway* looking upon the street."* The floon were made of stone, or 

 cement ; the roof* were nipported by rafters of the date-tree arranged 

 close together, and sometime* vaulted, being built like the rest f tlio 

 house of crude brick. On the top f the house was a terrace, covered 

 by a roof supported by columns. The porticoes, walls, ceilings, &c., 

 were all elaborately painted in patterns. The country-houses of the 

 noble* were very commodious mansions, with spacious gardens, fish- 

 ponds, farmhouses, granaries, Ac., attached. " Some large mansions 

 appear to have been ornamented with propyla and obelisks, like the 

 temple* themselves; it is even possible that part of the buiUliug 

 may have been consecrated to religious purposes, as the chapels of 

 other countries, since we find a priest engaged in presenting offering* 

 at the door of the inner chambers; and, indeed, but from the 

 presence of the women, the form of the garden, and the style of the 

 porch, we should feel disposed to consider it a temple rather than a 

 place of abode. The entrances of large villas were generally through 

 folding-gates, standing between lofty towers, as in the propybea of 

 temples, with a small door at each side; and others had merely 

 folding-gates with imposts surmounted by a cornice. A wall of circuit 

 extended round the premises ; but the courts of the house, the garden, 

 the offices, and all the other parts of the villa, had each their separate 

 enclosure. The walls were usually built of cmde brick ; and in damp 

 place*, or when within reach of the inundation, the lower part was 

 strengthened by a basement of stone. They were sometimes orna- 

 mented with panels and grooved lines, generally stuccoed ; and the 

 summit was crowned either with Egyptian battlements, the usual 

 cornice, a row of spikes in' imitation of spear-heads, or with some 

 fancy ornament." (Wilkinson, ii. 128.) 



One other class of structures the tombs requires a word of 

 notice since, besides possessing some points of architectural interest, it 

 is from them that we derive by far the greater part of our knowledge 

 of the arts and civilisation of ancient Egypt. Of these, the oldest and 

 most important, if we omit the pyramids, are the tombs of the Theban 

 kings, in the valley of Biban-el-Meluk, which are excavations in the 

 olid rock, often of great extent. Many of them have a rich archi- 

 tectural entrance facade, and all have their interior walls covered with 

 paintings and hieroglyphs of exceeding value from the information 

 they afford respecting the manners, customs, and history of the 

 people. Of these tombs, the most famous is that of Manepthah, who 

 built the great hypoetyle hall at Karnak, which extends in a sloping 

 direction for about 350 feet into the mountain, and which terminates 

 in a spacious chamber, in which stood the costly sarcophagus. Many 

 of the later tombs are commonly of crude or unburnt brick. These 

 tombs have a peculiar interest in connection with the history of archi- 

 tecture, as presenting unimpeachable evidence of the remote antiquity 

 of the invention of the arch. A tomb at Thebes, which belongs, according 

 t> Wilkinson, to the reign of Amunoph I. (B.C. 1540) has a vaulted 

 brick roof ; and in a tomb at Sakkara of the time of Psamaticus II. 

 (B.C. 600), whose name is engraven on it, occurs an arch of stone. 

 But though these and other examples prove that the Egyptians were 

 acquainted with the theory of the arch, they appear only to have 

 employed it in pyramids, tombs, and underground structures. 



EIDER DOWN. This beautiful substance is obtained from one 

 species of the duck, called the eider duck, found extensively in the 

 icy seas of the north. There are two kinds of eider down, the live and 

 the dead. The live down consists of the exquisitely light feathers 

 which the duck strips off from herself to keep her progeny warm in 

 the eggs. Its lightness and elasticity are such that two or three pounds 

 of it, squeezed into a ball which may be held in the hand, will swell 

 out to such an extent as to fill a case large enough for the foot-covering 

 of abed. The quantity of down afforded by one duck during the 

 whole period of laying is about a pound. The down-gatherers are 

 obliged to be cautious not to carry their somewhat cruel robbery too 

 far, or the ducks will not again return to the same spot. Any district 

 in which the eider duck is willing to settle is regarded as a valuable 

 property in Norway and Iceland, and the landowners do their best to 

 encourage their settlement. The dtad down is that which is taken 

 from the dead duck ; it is inferior to the live down. Eider down is 

 used chiefly in connection with beds and bedding. 



EIDOGHAPH, from the Greek words tTtot, a form, and yplspu, to 

 draw, is an instrument invented in the year 1821, by the late Professor 

 Wallace of Edinburgh, and described in the ' Transactions of the Royal 

 Society of Edinburgh," vol. xiii. It is a species of pantograph, and, 

 like the latter, it is used for the purpose of copying plans or other 

 drawings on the same or on different scales. 



A rod or beam A B of brass, 30 inches long and five-eighths of an 

 inch square, and made hollow for the sake of being light, slides freely 

 through a hollow rectangular socket c, whose length is 4J inches ; from 

 the lower surface of thin socket projects a steel pin of a conical form, 

 and serving as an axis ; the pin entering into a tube of a corresponding 

 form which stand* vertically on a cylindrical moss D of metal. The 

 mass serves as a base for the whole instrument ; and while the beam 

 A B may slide horizontally in the socket , it in capable of turning with 

 the socket upon the vertical axis in flic tnl.c . \- M -\, ,. n ,l , i t| 10 beam 

 AB curries a short tube in a vertical position, and through this passes 



the conical axle of a wheel or pulley E or r, which is placed beluw the 

 beam ; these wheel) are precisely equal in diameter, and are capable of 

 turning freely on their centres in a horizontal plane. 



The vertical edge of each of these wheels is grooved so as to r 

 a piece of very thin watch-spring a E b, c F d ; and the ends a and e, 

 6 and d are connected by a steel wire ; the pieces of watch-spring are 

 made fast near r. and F to the circumferences of the wheels, in order 

 to prevent them from slipping on those circumferences; a small move- 

 ment for the sake of adjustment only being allowed. Swivel screw* 

 at c and d serve to tighten or relax the band as may be necessary. 



Under each of the wheels E, F, is fixed a rectangular socket similar 

 to c, and in this slides, horizontally, a rectangular arm o H, K L, each of 

 which is 274 inches long : these arms, which turn with the wheels 

 K and F, are adjusted by means of the screws at c and rf, so as to be 

 always parallel to one another. At L is fixed a tracing point, like that 

 of a pantograph ; and at o a pencil in a socket or tube ; the tracer and 

 pencil are to be always in a straight line, passing through the common 

 axis of the mass D, and of the socket c. The pencil is made t . 

 gently on the paper by weights, but it is capable of being raised from 

 thence at pleasure by means of a lever, one end of which is connected 

 with the socket which carries it, and to the other is attached a string 

 which is to" be pulled by the operator when necessary : this movement 

 of the pencil carrier is facilitated by means of small friction rollers. 



The beam A B is divided on its upper face in 100 or 1000 equal parts, 

 and divisions equal to these are set on the upper face of each arm 

 o H, K L. By these divisions the distances of A and B from the axis 

 of D may have any given ratio to one another, and A o, B L may respect- 

 ively be made equal to the last-mentioned distances. Thus, the isosceles 

 triangles o A D, DEL will always be similar to one another ; and the 

 figure described by the movement of the pencil at o will be similar to 

 the original figure over which the tracer at L may be made to pass. 

 Consequently, a given plan or drawing may be enlarged or reduced in 

 any required proportion. 



Professor Wallace contrived an instrument which he called a 

 ' Chorograph,' for describing on paper any triangle, having one side ;nxl 

 all its angles given ; also for constructing two similar triangles on two 

 given straight lines, having the angles given. See ' Geometrical 

 Theorems,' to. By William Wallace, LL.D. Edinbiirgh, 1839. 



EIGHTH (in music), the octave or eighth note of the diatonic 

 scale. It is a perfect concord [CoN'cuiin], and in harmony is accom- 

 panied by the 5th and 3rd; but being almost identical with the base 

 note, it may form a part of any chord, or be omitted at discretion. 



EISTEDDFOD, from eistedd to sit; a meeting or assembly. This 

 term was more especially used as the name for the session of the bards 

 and minstrels which was held in Wales for many centuries. [1V\ up.] 

 Near the close of the last century some Welsh gentlemen determined 

 to endeavour to establish bardic meetings. The experiment proved 

 extremely popular, and ever since periodical meetings, to which the 

 name of Eisteddfod has been given, have been held successively in the 

 principal towns in Wales. The principal object of these modern 

 eisteddfodau has been to encourage the study of the Welsh tongue, 

 and to keep alive a national spirit; and with that view prizes arc 

 awarded to the best Welsh poet, the best player t on the Welsh harp 

 nal melodies, &c. 



EJECTMENT is the name of an action at law, by which a party 

 entitled to the immediate possession of lands or other corporeal 

 hereditaments may recover that possession from the party wrongfully 

 withholding it. 



Since the disuse, and subsequent abolition, of real actions, it li.i.s 

 become the only legal mode of trying the title to lands and tenements. 

 The procedure in it was re-modelled, and is now regulated entirely 

 by the Common Law Procedure Act of 1852. 



The old remedy by ejectment, better known as John Doev. Rii-Intnl 

 ;m founded almost entirely upon a succession of legal fictions, 

 and it is therefore necessary to give a short account of its history and 

 the proceedings under it. 



Originally this action was brought by any person having a lease of 

 lands, to repair an injury done him by dispossession ; but gradually it 

 became the means of indirectly bringing in question the title to the 

 lands, which wan thus a.lbi ' witli the nupposed trespass. 



For thin purpose it was mvi-ssary that, flu- flniinant should enter upon 

 the laiulii in order to empower him to constitute a lessee for years who 



