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 the gloomier and “unwholesome” sort. His treatment of most subjects was revolutionary; he deliberately ignored proportion and perspective, and the “freedom from convention” which he displayed caused his work to be judged with harshness. In certain phases of technique he especially excelled; and his earlier methods of dealing with the single line in conjunction with masses of black are in their way unsurpassed, except in the art of Japan, the country which probably gave his ideas some assistance. He was always an ornamentist, rather than an illustrator; and his work must be judged from that point of view. His frontispiece to Volpone is held by some to be, from this purely technical standpoint, one of the best pen-drawings of the age. His posters for the Avenue theatre and for Mr Fisher Unwin were among the first of the modern cult of that art.

 BEARDSTOWN, a city of Cass county, Illinois, U.S.A., in the W. part of the state, on the E. bank of the Illinois river, about 111 m. N. of St Louis, Missouri. It is served by the Baltimore & Ohio South-Western, and the Burlington (Chicago, Burlington & Quincy) railways, and by steamboats plying between it and St. Louis. Pop. (1890) 4226; (1900) 4827 (444 foreign-born); (1910) 6107. The industrial establishments of the city include flour, planing and saw mills, the machine shops (of the St Louis division) of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy railway, ice factories, pearl button factories and a shoe factory. The fishing interests are also important. Beardstown was laid out in 1827 and was incorporated as a city in 1896. It was named in honour of Thomas Beard, who settled in the vicinity in 1820. During the Black Hawk War (1832) it was a base of supplies for the Illinois troops. The old court house in which Abraham Lincoln, in 1854, won his famous “Armstrong murder case,” is now used for a city hall.

 BEARER, strictly “one who carries,” a term used in India for a palanquin-bearer, and now especially for a body-servant. The term is also used in connexion with military ambulances, and “bearer” companies formed part of the Royal Army Medical Corps until amalgamated with the field-hospitals to form field-ambulances (1905). In banking and commerce the word is applied to the holder or presenter of a cheque or draft not made payable to a specific person; it has also a technical use, as in printing, of anything that supports pressure in machinery, &c.

 BEARINGS. In engineering a “bearing” is that particular kind of support which, besides carrying the load imposed upon it by the shaft associated with it, allows the shaft freedom to revolve. Or, put in another way, a bearing forms with the shaft a pair of elements having one degree of freedom to turn relatively to one another about their common axis. The part of the shaft in the bearing is commonly called the journal. The component parts of a small bearing, pillow block, plummer block or pedestal, as it is variously styled, are illustrated in fig. 1, and these parts, put together, are further illustrated in fig. 2 with the shaft added. Corresponding parts are similarly lettered in the two illustrations. The shaft (S) is encircled by the brasses (B1 and B2) made of gun metal, phosphor bronze or other suitable material. The lower brass fits into the main casting (A) in the semicircular seat provided for it, and is prevented from moving endways by the flanges (F, F) and from turning with the shaft by the projections (P, P), which fit into corresponding recesses in the casting (A), one of which is shown at p. After the shaft has been placed in position, the upper brass (B2) and the cap (C) are put on and both are held in place by the bolts (Q1, Q2). The brasses are bedded into the main casting (A) and the cap (C) respectively at the surfaces D, D, D, D. The complete bearing is held to the framework of the machine by bolts (R1, R2) passing through holes (H, H) which are slotted to allow endwise adjustment of the whole bearing in order to facilitate the alignment of the shaft. Oil or other lubricant is introduced through the hole (G), and it passes through the top brass to grooves or oilways cut into the surface of the brass for the purpose of distributing the oil uniformly to the journal.

Some form of lubricator is usually fitted at G in order to supply oil to the bearing continuously. A form of lubricator used for this purpose is shown in place, fig. 2, and an enlarged section is shown in fig. 3. It will be seen that the lubricator consists essentially of a cup the base of which is pierced centrally by a tube which reaches to within a small distance of the lid of the cup inside, and projects into the oilway leading to the journal outside. The annular space round the tube inside is filled with oil which is transferred to the central tube and thence to the bearing by the capillary action of a cotton wick thrust down on a piece of wire. It is only necessary to withdraw the wick from the central tube to stop the supply of oil. The lubricator is fitted through a hole in the lid which is usually plugged with a piece of cane or closed by more elaborate means. A line of shafting would be supported by several bearings of the kind illustrated, themselves supported by brackets projecting from or rigidly fixed to the walls of the workshop, or on frames resting on the floor, or on hangers attached to the roof girders or principals.

In bearings of modern design for supporting a line shaft the general arrangement shown in fig. 1 is modified so that the alignments of the shaft can be made both vertically or horizontally by means of adjusting screws, and the brass is jointed with the supporting main body so that it is free to follow the small deflections of the shaft which take place when the shaft is working. Another modern improvement is the formation of an oil reservoir or well in the base of the bearing itself, and the transference of the oil from this well to the shaft by means of one or two rings riding loosely on the shaft. The bottom part of the ring dips into the oil contained in the well of the bearing and, as the shaft rotates, the ring rolls on the shaft and thus carries oil up to the shaft continuously, from which it finds its way to the surfaces of the shaft and bearing in contact. It should be understood that the upper brass is slotted crossways to allow the ring to rest on the shaft. When the direction of the load carried by the bearing is constant it is unnecessary to provide