QUARTER-STAFF 



6430 



QUATERNIONS 



magistrates meeting in quarter 

 sessions were the sole authority un- 

 til the establishment of the county 

 councils in 1888. Then they were 

 deprived of their administrative 

 duties, these having included the 

 raising and spending of money, but 

 they retained " their judicial au- 

 thority together with the general 

 execution of certain licence laws, 

 and a share in the management of 

 the county police." 



Quarter-staff. Weapon form 



Quart icr Latin (Fr., Latin 

 Quarter). District of Paris, south 

 of the Seine. It contains the Sor- 

 bonne and was early a resort of 

 scholars, its name being due to the 

 fact that Latin was their usual 

 speech. Later it became noted as 

 the resort of students of art. 



Quarto (from Lat. quartu*, 

 fourth). Term used of paper when 

 a sheet is folded twice, making four 

 leaves or eight pages, abbreviated 

 as 4to; it is applied to books a 



erly much used by the English. It size smaller than ^ folio (q.v.), or 



was a staff about 1 ins. in diameter, 



from 6 ft. to 8 ft. in length, and 



tipped with iron at each end. It 



was grasped in the middle by one 



hand and by the other a quarter 



way along, now at one end and now 



at the other, as policy dictated, the 



shifting of the hand giving it a 



circular play. Contests with the 



quarter-staff formed a regular fea- 



Quarter-staff. as used in medieval England. From a print 

 illustrating the fight between Robin Hood and the Tanner 



ture at rustic gatherings in some 

 parts of England. See Quarter- 

 staff, T. A. McCarthy, 1883. 



Quartet. Musical composition 

 written for four solo voices or in- 

 struments. The former may be for 

 male or female voices alone, or for 

 any combination of the two, the 

 most usual being for soprano, alto, 

 tenor, and bass ; the latter, in most 

 instances, is for strings alone, con- 

 sisting of 1st and 2nd violins, viola, 

 and violoncello. There are exam- 

 ples of the combination of wind and 

 string instruments, while some- 

 times the pianoforte is used and the 

 2nd violin omitted. This is known 

 as a pianoforte quartet. 



The term is also used of the 

 performers collectively, being de- 

 signated either by the name of the 

 first violinist, e.g. the Kneiscl 

 Quartet, or by the name of their 

 headquarters, e.g. the St. Peters- 

 burg Quartet. The string instru- 

 ments of the orchestra are some- 

 times called "the quartet," though 

 incorrectly so, as the inclusion of 

 the double bass makes five classes 

 of strings. The word has been like- 

 wise applied to sets of instruments, 

 corresponding to the 16th century 

 " chest of viols." 



usually 9 ins. by 12 ins. A quarto 

 is also an Italian dry measure 

 equalling a little over two bushels, 

 and in Portugal a liquid measure 

 holding nearly 3 litres. See Folio. 

 Quartz. In geology, name of a 

 mineral formed of silica, SiO?, crys- 

 tallising in the hexagonal system. 

 When pure, quartz is colourless, 

 transparent, has imperfect cleav- 

 . age, and is resist- 

 ant to weather- 

 ing. The colour- 

 less varieties are 

 known as rock 

 crystal, but im- 

 purities give to 

 quartz various 

 tints from yellow 

 to black. It is 

 one of the most 

 widely distri- 

 b u ted of all 

 m i n e r a 1 s, the 

 principal ingre- 

 dient of sand- 

 stones and a con- 

 stituent of many clays, granites, 

 porphyries, etc., and the veins or 

 reefs which it forms in other rocks 

 are often rich, in gold and other 

 valuable metals. It is harder than 

 mild steel and scratches glass 

 readily. The impure varieties of 

 quartz include many precious or 

 semi-precious stones, e.g. amethyst, 

 cat's eye, Spanish topaz, agate, 

 carnelian, jasper, onyx, etc. 



By heating in the o'xyhydrogen 

 blowpipe quartz can be fused and 

 drawn out into long threads which 

 are used in the making of torsion 

 balances, galvanometers, etc., and 

 the fused rock is used in the manu- 

 facture of much physical appara- 

 tus. Its hardness and transparency 

 when pure make it an excellent ma- 

 terial for the manufacture of spec- 

 tacles, lenses, etc., and it is used in 

 the making of sandpaper, glass, 

 refractory bricks, cements, etc. 

 See Gem, col. plate; Mineralogy. 

 Quartzite. In geology, the name 

 given to a metamorphic rock com- 

 posed chiefly of quartz. It is the 

 result of alteration of sandstone by 

 the accretion of silica round the ori- 

 ginal sand grains and the solidifica- 

 tion of the whole sandstone into a 

 dense vitreous rock. 



Quass (Russ., kvastt). Russian 

 beer. It is made from barley and 

 rye or oat malt, and is a thick, 

 somewhat muddy beverage. 



Quassia (Quassia amara). Tree 

 of the natural order Simarubaceae. 

 A native of tropical America, the 



Quassia. Leaves and tubular flowers 

 of the Surinam variety 



alternate leaves are broken up into 

 a double row of leaflets, not unlike 

 those of the ash. The large, tubu- 

 lar, scarlet flowers are clustered. 

 The wood is intensely bitter, and 

 was formerly used as a tonic and in 

 dysentery, but the quassia of mod- 

 ern medicine is furnished by an 

 allied tree (Picraena excelsa), a na- 

 tive of Jamaica, whose timber is 

 exported in the shape of logs. 



Quast, FERDINAND VON (b. 1850). 

 German soldier. The son of Fer- 

 dinand von Quast, conservator of 

 artmonuments 

 in Prussia, he 

 was born Oct. 

 18, 1850, at 

 Radensleben, 

 and educated 

 at the gymna- 

 sium at Neu- 

 ruppin, near 

 Berlin. He 

 F. von Quast, entered the 

 German soldier German army 

 as a lieutenant of infantry in 1870, 

 was lieut. -general, and in com- 

 mand of the 6th division, in 

 1910, and three years later was 

 general of inf antry, and commander 

 of the 9th army corps. In the Great 

 War he came into prominence as 

 commander of the German 6th 

 army, which fought against the 

 British on the R. Lys, April, 1918. 

 Quaternary. In geology, name 

 given to the period of time follow- 

 ing the Tertiary. The term is in 

 some respects vague, and various 

 alternative terms have been sug- 

 gested for the period. Sir A. Geikie 

 divided it into a Human period and 

 a Glacial period or the Pleistocene. 

 See Ice Age ; Pleistocene ; Pliocene. 

 Quaternions. Branch of mathe- 

 matics invented by Sir W. R. Ham- 

 ilton. It is an analytic method 



