Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 02.djvu/487

LEFT CHAHCOAL 423 CHABENTE For making fine charcoal, such as that of willow, used in the manufacture of gunpowder, the wood is burned in iron cylinders or rather retorts, in which a process of destructive distillation re- moves the volatile hydrocarbons, pyro- ligneous acid, etc. By this more perfect means the process is accurately regu- lated. Charcoal is used in the arts as a fuel; a polishing powder; a table on CHARCOT, JEAN BAPTISTS ETIENNE AUGUSTE, a French ex- plorer, born at Neuilly, France, in 1867. He was educated in Paris, where he later studied medicine and was attached to several important hospitals. In 1903 he began a series of Arctic explorations in the region of the South Pole, and his researches proved of great scientific value. His published writings include CASTLE OF CHAPULTEPEC which pieces of metal are secured in position to be soldered by the blowpipe; a filter; a defecator and decolorizer of solutions and water; an absorbent of gases and aqueous vapors; a nonconduct- ing packing in ice-houses, safes, and re- frigerators; an ingredient in gunpowder and fire-works; in the galvanic battery and the electric light. Animal charcoal is used largely in sugar-refining, and as a disinfectant and filtering medium, is prepared by calcin- ing bones in closed vessels. These are either retorts, similar to those in which coal is distilled for the production of illuminating gas, or they are earthen- ware pots, piled up in kilns and fired. Charges of 50 pounds of bones to a pot will require 16 hours of firing. The bones are then ground between fluted rollers, the dust removed, and the granu- lated material used for charging the filters of the sugar refiner. The ma- terial is used for removinsr color, feculen- cies, and fermenting ingredients from the syrup. "France at the South Pole"; "Around the South Pole" and many scientific ar- ticles relating to his explorations. CHARCOT, JEAN MARTIN ( shar- ks' ), a French physician, born in Paris, Nov. 29, 1825. His specialty was in the treatment of nervous and mental dis- eases, and he performed many curious and successful experiments in hypnotism and mental suggestion, in the Salpetriere where he founded a clinic for the treat- ment of nervous diseases in 1880. He published several works treating of these subjects. He died Aug. 16, 1893. CHARD, the leaves of artichoke covered with straw in order to blanch them and make them less bitter. Beet chards, the leaf stalks and midribs of a variety of white beet in which these parts are greatly developed, dressed for the table. CHARENTE (sha-ranf), a river in western France, rising in the depart- ment of Haute-Vienne, and falling into