East Retford. Seal 

 of borough council 



RET hM iON 



walls, which require only a small 

 fraction of the amount of material 

 required for a solid masonry or 

 plain concrete wall. See Building. 



Retention. In Scots law, a term 

 used for the right of a creditor to 

 retain the property of a debtor, 

 who has not paid his debt to him, 

 until such is paid. The right is 

 limited to the special purposes and_ 

 conditions of the deposit. 



Retford, EAST. Mun. borough 

 and market town of Nottingham- 

 shire, England. It stands on the 

 Idle, 138 m. 

 from London 

 and 18 m. from 

 Newark, and is 

 served by 

 the G.N. and 

 G.C. Rlys., also 

 by a canal. 

 The chief 

 church is S. 

 Swithin's, rebuilt in the 17th cen- 

 tury, and the chief buildings are 

 the town hall, corn exchange, and 

 grammar school, founded in 1552. 

 The industries include corn mills, 

 iron foundries, rubber works, and 

 paper mills. There is a large agri- 

 cultural trade, for which there is a 

 commodious covered market. In 

 the Middle Ages East Retford be- 

 came a borough, and held fairs 

 and markets. It was separately 

 represented in Parliament from 

 1571 to 1885. In 1830 the hundred 

 of Bassetlaw was made part of the 

 constituency. West Retford is a 

 part of the borough. Market day, 

 Sat Pop. 13,400. 



Rethel. Town of France. In the 

 de.pt. of Ardennes, it stands on the 

 Aisne and the canal des Ardennes, 

 23 m. from Reims. The chief 

 buildings are the church of S. 

 Nicholas and the H6tel Dieu. A 

 Roman settlement, Rethel was an 

 important place in the Middle 

 Ages, when a priory was founded 

 here. It was the capital of a 

 county, at one time part of Bur- 

 gundy. This was made a duchy 

 in 1581. There was a good deal of 

 fighting around Rethel during the 

 Great War. Pop. 5,700. See Aisne; 

 Battles of the. 



Reticulum (Lat., little net). 

 In astronomy, a southern circum- 

 polar constellation, one of the four 

 which border on the Greater Magel- 

 lanic Cloud between Hydras and 

 Dorado. It was so named by 

 Lacaille. See Constellation. 



Retimo OK RETHYMNON. Port 

 and town of Crete, the ancient 

 Rhethymnos. On the N. coast, 

 about 49 m. W. of Candia, it has a 

 shipping trade in olive oil and val- 

 onia. Pop. about 10,000. See Crete. 

 Retina. Membrane composed of 

 ten layers of tissue. It forms the 

 innermost covering of the interior 



6578 



; 



RETOUCHING 



may be condensed or absorbed and 

 so collected. There are three broad 

 classes : first, the well-known ap- 

 pliance of the chemical laboratory 

 made usually of glass, but some- 

 times of earthenware, clay, or 

 metal ; secondly, the fireclay or 

 iron chamber of the ordinary gas 

 works in which coal is destructively 

 distilled, and from which the crude 

 gas issues to the hydraulic main ; 

 and thirdly, the vessels, which are 

 of various shapes and materials, 

 used by the metallurgist for the 

 extraction of certain metals from 

 their ores and for the separation 



of the eyeball, ex- 

 tending forwards 

 to within a short 

 distance of the 

 margin of the 

 pupil. It is 

 formed by an 

 expansion of the 

 optic nerve. The 

 retina is the struc- 

 ture upon which 

 fall images formed 

 by rays of light 

 passing through 

 the lens, and it 

 transmits through 



Retford, Nottingham. Parish church of S. Switbin ; 

 top, left, Town Hall, built in 1868 



its complex of the metals of amalgams. The 



layers the stimulus caused by the term is also sometimes applied to 



image, thus giving rise to the 

 sensation of vision. See Eye. 



Retinitis. Disease of the eye. 

 It takes the form of inflammation 

 of the retina. See Eye. 



Retort (Lat. retortus, bent 

 back, twisted). Generally, an 

 apparatus in which a mixture or C 

 compound is broken up by 

 the aid of heat or chemical 

 action. One or more of 

 the constituents of the 

 contents of the retort i. 

 volatilised and ex- 

 pelled from the ap- 

 paratus into another 

 appliance where it 



the containers or muffles in which 

 iron is converted into steel by con- 

 tact with carbon. A still is a retort. 

 See Appolt Oven ; Charcoal ; Dis- 

 tillation; Mercury; Zinc. 



Retort. 1. Glass laboratory retort. 

 9. Built up fireclay retort. 3. 

 Iron retort for distilling quick- 

 silver from gold amalgam: A. 

 Retort. B. Cramp to secure coyer. 

 C. Vapour pipe to convey quick- 

 silver vapour 



Retouching. In 



photography, pro- 

 cess of improving, 

 by hand, photo- 

 graphic negatives 

 or prints. Nega- 

 tives are worked 

 up on the film 

 side with a finely 

 pointed, fairly 

 hard pencil, after 

 rubbing the sur- 

 face with a 

 medium which 

 rovides ;> tooth for the 

 encil. The lilm itself is also 

 shaved down where re- 

 quired with a sharp knife, and the 

 opacity of the negative increased 

 or reduced by these two means. 

 Negatives are also worked up 

 on the glass side with pencil or 



