Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume III.djvu/656

 650 CAMEL however, is as a beast of burden ; its strength, power of endurance, ability to subsist on the coarsest food, to go without water, and to travel over the yielding sand, has justly earned for it the title of " ship of the desert." The ordinary load for a camel is about 600 Ibs., i though for short journeys it can carry 1,000 | Ibs. ; the speed of the camel is seldom more than 3 miles an hour, and the swiftest drome- | daries do not exceed 10, but the pace can be kept up for 20 hours without rest; a lightly loaded camel will take with the same foot about 38 strides a minute, each one averaging 7 feet. Riding on a swift camel is the most I terrible way of travelling to the uninitiated, as the peculiar swinging and jerking gait jolts one almost to a jelly. Though naturally gentle and obedient, from the ill treatment of their drivers I they are very often unruly and even savage, biting severely. The height of the Arabian I camel at the shoulder is between 6 and 7 feet, and the color of the rather coarse hair is of various shades of brown. The dromedary is generally used for riding, and the ordinary camel as a beast of burden. The Bactrian camel has two humps, and is a little larger than the Arabian ; it has less endurance than the latter, and is loaded with more difficulty, but is used with great advantage throughout cen- tral Asia, Thibet, and China, as a beast of bur- den and draught ; in Persia, a very serviceable form of light artillery is mounted on these animals. A fossil camel, larger than any ex- isting species, has been discovered in the ter- tiary deposits of the Sivalik hills of Hindostan. For interesting anecdotes of this animal, the reader is referred to Broderip's " Leaves from the Note Book of a Naturalist." Major Wayne's report on the use of the camel in the United States contains much valuable in- formation regarding this animal. He says : " Formed rather for a level than a broken country, the camel meets without inconve- nience a fair amount of mountain and valley, and is not distressed in ascending or descend- ing moderate slopes, although they be long. The foot of the camel, clothed with a tough skin, enables it to travel with facility over sand, gravel, or stones. It will also stand a tolerable degree of volcanic d6bris or rocky soil, and aided by art provided with a shoe of hide, iron-shod at the bottom, and attached round the fetlock joint it traverses these im- pediments without difficulty, and also ice and snow. In wet, clayey, and muddy soils the camel moves with embarrassment, and is apt to slip and slide in it, without the ability to gather itself quickly." Its capacity to carry weight on continuous journeys he estimates, for the strongest camels, at from 450 to 600 Ibs., for the common kinds from 300 to 450 Ibs. ; and these they will carry from 18 to 80 m. a day, according to the character of the country, whether broken or level, over which they travel, moving for the usual daily travelling time of from 8 to 10 hours. "With lighter CAMELLIA loads they will travel a little faster. The sad- dle dromedary, or swift riding camel, he thinks, will carry from 150 to 300 Ibs. continually, trav- elling from 8 to 10 hours, about 50 in. a day. On emergency, they will make from 70 to 90 m. a day, but only for a day or two, over a level country. The true land of the camel is not, as many persons suppose, the tropics, or their confines, but rather the northern regions of the temperate zone. They thrive better, and are a larger and stronger animal, in cen- tral Asia than in Africa or Arabia, and are as impatient of extreme heat as of intense cold. < AMKL. a machine for partially lifting ships so as to float them in shoal water, as over bars. It was invented and first applied by the Dutch about the year 1688, in order to carry their ships over the sands of the Zuyder Zee. The appliance used by them consisted of two simi- lal--shaped vessels about 127 ft. long, 22 ft. wide at one end, and 13 at the other. These being brought one on each side of the ship, and secured to it by ropes passing under the keel from one to the other, water was let into each till it sank nearly down to the surface, the ropes being kept tight by windlasses or capstans on the decks of the camels. The water being then pumped out, the camels as they rose lifted the vessel with them. For large ships heavy timbers were run out of the port holes which took the strain as the camels rose under them. By this means ships of war carrying 100 guns were readily made to pass the sand banks of the Zuy.der Zee. Similar machines are used for carrying vessels over the bar of New Bedford harbor, and at Nantucket ; and they are also used for raising sunken vessels. Floating docks are constructed on the same principle; and vessels are often lightened by the use of empty casks floated on each side, and drawn down by ropes under the keel. CAMELLIA, a genus of shrubs belonging to the natural order ternstromiacece, and furnish- ing the domestic drug tea and some of the most beautiful of cultivated flowers. All the species are natives of China, Japan, or Nepaul. They were first imported into Europe by a German Jesuit named Kamcl, about the year 1739 ; and hence the name of camellia. They are polypetalous cotyledons, with alternate feather-veined leaves, regular flowers, the pe- tals and sepals both imbricated in aestivation, and have some affinity with the rose tribe. The C. lohea and -ciridis are the species whose dried leaves make the tea of commerce. The G. Japonica is called by the French la, rose du Japan, or la rose de la Chine. It has broad shining leaves and beautiful red or white flow- ers, single or double, and is the origin of nearly all the varieties now cultivated in gardens. It is greatly admired in China and Japan, and is of frequent occurrence in Chinese paintings. Many of its varieties have been created by the skill of the Chinese, and are remarkable for their brilliant colors and the exquisite sym- metry with which their petals are arranged.