Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/135

Rh K Y D R Y E 117 lished at Constantinople The Capitulation, Articles of Peace, &c., concluded between the King of England and the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. Subsequently he was for eleven years consul at Smyrna, and at the command of Charles II. wrote The Present State of tJie Greek and Armenian Churches, Anno Christi 1678, which on his return to England he presented to the king and published in 1679. In 1685 Lord Clarendon, lord lieutenant of Ireland, made him principal secretary for the provinces of Leinster and Connaught. He at the same time received from James II. the honour of knighthood, was made a member of the privy council of Ireland, and named judge of the high court of admiralty, which office he retained till 1688. From 1690 to 1700 he was employed by King William as English resident at the Hanse towns, and shortly after his return to England, worn out with age and infirmities, he died on the 16th December 1700. Rycaut was a fellow of the Royal Society, and wrote an article on Sable Mice which was published in their Transactions. In addition to the works already mentioned he was the author of A Continuation of Knolles' History of the Turks from 1623 to 1677 (1680), and from 1679 to 1699 (1700) ; A Translation of Platina's Lives of the Popes, with a Continuation from 1471 to the Present Time (1685) ; The Critick, from the Spanish of Gracian (1686) ; and the Royal Commentaries of Peru, from the Spanish of Garcilasso (1688). HYDE, a municipal borough and watering place of the Isle of Wight, is finely situated on a sloping eminence above the Solent, 5 miles south by west of Portsmouth, and 7 (12 by rail) from West Cowes. It occupies the site of a village called La Eye or La Riche, which was destroyed by the French in the reign of Ed ward I L About the close of the 18th century it was a small fishing hamlet; but when the beauty of its site attracted attention it rapidly grew into favour as a watering-place. The streets are wide, regular, and well-paved, and there are a large number of fine villas on the slopes of the hill. It is connected by rail with the principal other towns in the island, and there is also steamboat communication with Portsmouth, Southampton, Southsea, Portsea, and Stoke's Bay. The pier, built originally in 1812, but since then greatly ex- tended, forms a delightful promenade half a mile in length. The principal buildings are All Saints church, erected in 1870 from the designs of Sir Gilbert Scott, and other churches, the market-house and town hall, the Royal Vic- toria Yacht club-house, the theatre, and the Royal Isle of Wight Infirmary. The town was incorporated in 1868, and is governed by a mayor, six aldermen, and eighteen councillors. The population of the municipal borough (area 792 acres) in 1871 was 11,260 and in 1881 it was 11,461. RYE. As in the case of other cereals, it is doubtful if rye (Secale cereale) exists at the present time in a truly wild state. The best evidence on this point goes to show that the plant is a native of the regions between the Black and Caspian Seas. It is also recorded from Afghanistan and Turkestan ; but botanists are very chary about admitting the validity of the evidence hitherto adduced. Aitchison, the latest investigator of the flora of Afghanistan, mentions it as growing in wheat-fields, where it is considered as a weed, not being intentionally sown. In some fields "it almost eradicates the wheat crop." But this merely shows that the conditions are more favourable to the growth of rye than to that of wheat. In spite of the uncertainty as to the precise origin of the cultivated plant, its cultivation does not appear to have been practised at a very early date, relatively speaking. Alphonse de Candolle, who has collected the evidence on this point, draws attention to the fact that no traces of this cereal have hitherto been found in Egyptian monuments or in the earlier Swiss dwellings, though seeds have been found in association with weapons of the Bronze period at Olmiitz. The absence of any special name for it in the Semitic, Chinese, and Sanskrit languages is also adduced as an indication of its comparatively recent culture. On the other hand, the general occurrence of the name in the more modern languages of northern Europe, under various modifications, points to the cultivation of the plant then, as now, in those regions. The origin of the Latin name secale, which exists in a modified form among the Basques and Bretons, is not explained. The circumstances that the cultivation of rye is relatively not of great antiquity and that it is confined to a relatively restricted area must be taken into account, in connexion with the fact that the variations of this cereal are much fewer than are noted in the case of other plants of like character. The fact stated by Miiller that the anthers and stigmas of the flowers come to maturity at the same time would tend to " close fertilization " and a consequent constancy of "characters" in the offspring, and, as a matter of fact, the varieties of this grass are not numerous. Rye is a tall-growing annual grass, with fibrous roots, flat, narrow, ribbon-like bluish-green leaves, and erect or decurved cylindrical slender spikes like those of barley. The spike- lets contain two or three flowers, of which the uppermost is usually imperfect. The outer glumes are acute glabrous, the flowering glumes lance-shaped, with a comb-like keel at the back, and the outer or lower one prolonged at the apex into a very long bristly awn. Within these are three stamens surrounding a compressed ovary, with two feathery stigmas. When ripe, the grain is of an elongated oval form, with a few hairs at the summit. In the southern parts of Great Britain rye is chiefly or solely cultivated as a forage-plant for cattle and horses, being usually sown in autumn for spring use, after the crop of roots, turnips, &c., is exhausted, and before the clover and lucerne are ready. For forage purposes it is best to cut early, before the leaves and haulms have been exhausted of their supplies to benefit the grain. In the northern parts of Europe, and more especially in Scan- dinavia, Russia, and parts of northern Germany, rye is the principal cereal ; and in nutritive value, as measured by the amount of gluten it contains, it stands next to wheat, a fact which furnishes the explanation of its culture in northern latitudes ill-suited for the growth of wheat. Rye- bread or black-bread is in general use in northern Europe, but finds little favour with those unaccustomed to its use, owing to its sour taste, the sugar it contains rapidly passing into the acetous fermentation. When the ovaries of the plant become affected with a peculiar fungus (Cordyceps), they become blackened and distorted, constituting ERGOT (<?.#.). RYE, a municipal town and seaport at the eastern extremity of the county of Sussex, 63 miles south-south- east of London, is built upon a rocky eminence which two or three centuries ago was washed on all sides by the influx of the tide, but now, in consequence of the gradual recession of the sea, lies two miles inland. It is sur- rounded by rich marsh land through which flows the river Rother, uniting at the south-east foot of the rock with two rivulets to form a small serpentine estuary, Rye harbour, the mouth of which is connected with the town by means of a branch line of railway. In bygone years, when the adjacent marshes were flooded with tidal water, the efflux was so powerful as to effectually maintain safe and free entrance into Rye harbour ; and in the reign of Charles II. a frigate of 50 guns could enter and ride at anchor. Now the harbour suffers seriously from the shifting sand and shingle, and considerable sums of money have been expended by the harbour commissioners with the view of overcoming these impediments, with but partial success. The trade is chiefly in coal, timber,