Roll (Lat. rotula, a little wheel). 

 Something that turns like a wheel. 

 It has come to be used for that 

 which is rolled, e.g. a roll of paper, 

 or anything else that is wound 

 upon a roller. In music, by an- 

 alogy, a roll is the continuous 

 vibration of the drum head ob- 

 tained by rapid strokes of the drum 

 sticks, usually indicated either as 

 a trill tr^rt/ or as a tremolo ? 

 There 2. are several kinds of EH 

 rolls on the side-drums, according to 

 the way in which the sticks are used. 

 Roll, ALFRED PHILIPPE (1847- 

 1919). French painter. Born in 

 Paris, March 10, 1847, he followed 

 at first the 

 romantic style 

 of G e r 6 m e , 

 and first ex- 

 hibited at the 

 Salon in 1870. 

 One of the 

 pioneers of 

 open-air 

 painting, h e 

 attracted at- Alfred Roll, 



tention with French painter 

 his military subject, Halte-la, 1875, 

 and his striking Greve des Mineurs, 

 1880. He has painted many por- 

 traits and pictures of public occa- 

 sions, and examples of his able, if 

 academic, work may be seen at 

 Versailles, the Hotel de Ville, Paris, 

 and in several French provincial 

 collections. He became president 

 of the Societe des Beaux Arts, 

 1905. He died Oct. 27, 1919. 



Rolland, ROMAIN (b. 1866). 

 French author. Born at Clamecy, 

 Nievre, Jan. 29, 1866, he early de- 

 voted himself 

 t o literature, 

 became profes- 

 sor [at the Sor- 

 bonne, and 

 won wide repu- 

 tation by his 

 writings for 

 the stage, criti- 

 c i s m, fiction, 

 and biography. 

 The thesis 

 which he wrote for his degree, Les 

 Origines du Theatre Lyrique Mo- 

 derne, 1895, was crowned by the 

 French Academy. His plays, Aert, 

 1898; Le Triomphe de la Raison, 

 1898; Danton, 1901; and Le 14 

 Juillet, 1902, while full of interest, 

 were not greatly successful, and he 

 turned to other literary fields, 

 especially to the history and inter- 

 pretation of music, and produced 

 a rapid succession of notable works, 

 including Le Theatre du Peuple, 

 1904 (Eng. trans. 1919); critical 

 biographies of Beethoven, 1903;" 

 Michelangelo, 1907 (Eng. trans. 

 1912); Handel, 1916; and Tolstoy, 

 1911 (Eng. trans. 1911); Musiciens 

 d'Autrefois, and Musiciens d'Au- 



Remain Rolland, 

 French author 



6669 



jourd'hui, 1908 (both translated 

 into English, 1915) ; L'Humble Vie 

 Heroique, and Les Maitres de la 

 Musique, 1912. 



While producing these books 

 Rolland had also been engaged 

 upon his masterpiece, Jean-Chris- 

 tophe, which was published in ten 

 volumes, 1905-12 (Eng. trans. 

 1911-13). This work, described by 

 the author as " the tragedy of a 

 generation that had disappeared," 

 presents the story of a young 

 musician of genius, but is not so 

 much a novel as a rambling 

 romance in which the author phil- 

 osophises over many things ; it is 

 a novel only in the sense that 

 Goethe's Wilhelm Meister and 

 Richter's Flower, Fruit and Thorn 

 Pieces are novels. Rolland was 

 indeed a close student of the Ger- 

 mans, and his articles published in 

 the Journal de Geneve, Sept.-Oct., 

 1914 " you know well I love 

 your old Germany " created 

 something of a sensation in France, 

 where his philosophic pacifism met 

 with little sympathy. Rolland 

 received the Nobel prize for litera- 

 ture, 1915. See French Novelists 

 of To-day, W. Stephens, {1915; 

 Remain Rolland, S. Zweig, Eng. 

 trans. E. and C. Paul, 1921. 



Roll-Call. Term applied to the 

 calling over of a list of names, 

 especially of soldiers or students, 

 to ascertain how many of the full 

 number are present. A famous 

 battle-picture with this title, by 

 Lady Elizabeth Butler (q.v.), was 

 first exhibited in 1874. In some 

 of the public schools the answer to 

 the roll -call, known at Harrow as bill, 



ROLLER 



ordinary smooth roller may be of 

 wood, stone, or iron. The first 

 kind is little used, though capable 

 of good work where great weight is 

 unnecessary. - Stone rollers are too 

 heavy, and are seldom seen. Iron 

 rollers are commonly made in sec- 

 tions, and vary in size according 

 to the class of work. Rolling is of 

 importance in the preparation of a 

 fine seed-bed, while after a crop is 

 sown the operation promotes even 

 germination by producing a level 

 surface and consolidating the soil. 

 See Road ; Steam Roller. 



Roller. Group of birds, includ- 

 ing several genera, which are widely 

 distributed throughout the E. 

 hemisphere. In general appear- 



Roller, the bine species which visits 

 Great Britain 



ance they resemble crows, but have 

 plumage of very brilliant colours. 

 One species, the blue roller (Cora- 

 das garrula), breeds in S. Europe, 

 and occasionally visits Great 

 Britain. It is like a jay, has 

 chestnut brown and blue plumage, 

 and is about 12 ins. in length. 

 The name is derived from the 

 peculiar habit of these birds of 

 appearing to lose 

 balance and roll 

 over when in 

 flight, especially 

 by the males 

 during the court- 

 ing season. The 

 name roller is also 

 given to certain 

 varieties of tum- 

 bler pigeons, e.g. 

 Oriental roller. 

 See Pigeon. 



is the Latin adsum, 

 I am present. 



Roller. An im- 

 plement used for 

 levelling or com- 

 pressing the soil, 

 and also for break- 

 ing up clods. For 

 the latter purpose 

 the roller should 

 have a fluted or 

 toothed surface, ' 

 and is t h e'A t> 

 distinguished as a 

 clod-crusher. An 



Roller. Sectional field roller, composed of a series of 



narrow cylinders revolving independently on the axle. 



Top, fluted field roller 



By courtesy of J. A P. Howard, Ltd., Bedford 



