Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IV.djvu/445

 CHIMES CHIMNEY 437 resembles an enormous semi-transparent dome, defined by the deep azure of the sky; dim, yet too decided in outline to be mistaken for a cloud. Its top is covered with per- petual snow. Humboldt and his companions, in June, 1802, made extraordinary exertions to reach its summit, and arrived within about 2,000 ft. of that point, then believed to be the greatest elevation ever attained by man. Here they planted their instruments upon a narrow ledge of porphyritic rock, which projected from the vast field of unfathoined snow. A broad impassable chasm prevented their further ad- vance ; besides which, they felt in the extreme all the usual inconveniences of such high situ- ations. They were enveloped in thick fogs, arid in an atmosphere of the most piercing coM. They breathed with difficulty, and blood burst from their eyes and lips. J. B. Bous- singault, in December, 1831, ascended still higher, reaching an elevation of 19,695 ft. ; but the summit of this gigantic mountain still re- mains unexplored by man. CHIMES, a set of bells tuned to the modern musical scale, and struck by hammers which are moved either by clockwork or by hand. In the latter case they are commonly termed carillons, a name applied by the French in common parlance indiscriminately to the tune played and to the series of bells, whether sounded by machinery or by hand, though the most accurate writers distinguish the latter as carillons a clavier. The mechanism for sound- ing chimes consists of a cylinder from the cir- cumference of which project pegs placed at proper intervals according to the order in which each bell is to be struck. This is made to revolve by clockwork, and the pegs are thus brought into contact with levers operating upon the bell hammers. Carillons are played by means of an attachment similar to the key board of a pianoforte ; for the larger kinds the keys are of great size, and the performer strikes them not with his fingers but with his fists, which are guarded by leathern coverings. Notwithstanding the great force requisite in playing this colossal instrument, musicians have sometimes acquired marvellous skill in performing on it the most difficult airs. It is often adapted to music in three parts, the base being played on pedals and the first and second trebles with the hands. Potthoff, a blind or- ganist and carillon player of Amsterdam, used to execute fugues on it, though every key required a force equal to the weight of 2 Ibs. A pleasing application of chimes is made to clocks and watches, by which they ring out the hours, halves, and quarters. When intended to be placed in a small compass, the bells are arranged concentrically one within another. This species of music is supposed to have origi- nated in some of the monastic institutions of Germany, and the first instrument for produ- cing it is said to have been made at Alost, in the Netherlands, in 1487. Among the finest sets of chimes in Europe are those at Copen- hagen and Ghent. At Amsterdam there are both carillons and chimes, the former of three octaves, with all the semitones complete. CHIMNEY (Lat. caminus, Gr. K&HIVCM;, a fur- nace), the flue for producing a draught and conveying off the smoke of a fire. Simple as these contrivances are, chimneys do not appear to have been known in ancient times. Ac- cording to Tomlinson, they were probably in use in England before those of Padua, the ear- liest record of which carries them back to some period previous to 1368, when Carraro, lord of Padua, introduced them into Kome. But the use of the curfew bell in preceding centu- ries indicates their absence, when the practice prevailed of thus summoning the people to cover over the fires that burned in pits in the centre of the floor, under an opening in the roof. In Venice they appear to have been common in the 14th century, a number being thrown down, it is recorded, by an earthquake on Jan. 25, 1347. Leland thus speaks of Bol- ton castle, which he says " was finiched or kynge Eichard the 2 dyed: 1 ' "One thynge I muche notyd in the hawle of Bolton, how chimeneys were conveyed by tunnells made on the syds of the walls betwyxt the lights in the hawle, and by this means, and by no covers, is the smoke of the harthe in the hawle wonder strangely conveyed." But for centuries after- ward they appear to have been known only as luxuries in the houses of the great; and in the time of Queen Elizabeth visitors were occasion- ally sent to houses thus provided, that they might have the enjoyment of this convenience. Beckmann, in his " History of Inventions," has gathered from ancient sources many curious allusions to what in our translations are called chimneys ; but these appear after all to have been nothing better than holes in the roof, through which the smoke found its way out, as from the wigwams of the American Indians. Neither Vitruvius nor Julius Pollux, an an- cient lexicographer, who gives the names of all parts of a house in Greek, nor Grapaldi, who does the same in Latin, makes mention of chimneys. Among the most ancient ruins no traces of them are found, nor have any been discovered in Herculaneum, though charcoal has been met with in some of the apartments. The mode of warming rooms appears to have been to place upon the floor a portable pan or furnace containing live coals. Hence the pro- priety of the observation of the poet Sosipater, that one qualification of a perfect cook was the art of determining which way the wind blows ; and also of the advice of Vitruvius, that there should be only plain cornices in rooms where there are to be fires and lights, as more elabo- rate ornaments would soon be filled with soot. Anacharsis, the Scythian, speaks of the Greeks keeping the smoke without, and bringing only fire into their houses ; and Heliogabalus is said by Lampridius to have burned in the stoves spices and costly perfumes instead of wood. The Persians, who still retain some of the most