Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XV.djvu/783

 TILE le estate which supplied the clay, the name of the reigning emperor or of the consulship, and "ler matters. Thus they have often served as records of important historical events. The les used hy the Romans for covering interior rails were large thin squares of terra cotta, gen- erally ornamented on one side with incised de- vices. The tessellated pavements were formed of small cubical tiles called tessella (the dimin- utive of tesserm, from the Gr. riaaapes, four, having reference to their form). Some of these tessellcs were not more than one fourth of an inch square, and they were laid to form mosaics. The Eomans, like the more ancient nations, made use of large flat tiles in the con- struction of their graves, and also for grave- stones with inscriptions. At the international exhibition at Vienna in 1873 there was a rich assemblage of decorative tiles of several coun- tries, many of the specimens being from Great Britain, where the art is now practised in great perfection. Among the latter were Roman tiles and tessellm from mosaic pavements re- cently excavated at Chichester. There were also glazed decorated tiles (see ENCAUSTIC) from Egypt and Assyria, and Saracenic tiles from Spain ; also antique tiles from India and from the mosques of Samarcand of the 14th and 15th centuries. In the Indian tiles, brought by Dr. Leitner from Lahore, and taken from old monuments, the colors retained their ori- ginal vividness. The manufacture in Great Britain dates from mediaeval times, doubtless due to imitation of the Roman pottery, and may be divided into two periods. The most ancient tiles were probably made between 1290 and 1380, and those of the second period du- ring the prevalence of the perpendicular style of building. Numerous kilns have been found in the Malvern hills, and it is supposed that Tewkesbury abbey and Worcester and Glou- cester cathedrals were furnished by them with tiles. The manufacture is said to have con- tinued in Worcestershire to about 1640. Some of the earliest specimens of tiles in the British museum are from the ruined churches in Nor- folk. The designs upon the tiles at that time were chiefly sacred symbols and inscriptions, heraldic devices, and monograms. The ma- terial is ordinary coarse red clay, the designs being formed of a lighter-colored clay con- tained in incisions in the body, and afterward covered with a glazing. The manufacture of tiles in Holland commenced at a very early period, and in the 18th century large quanti- ties were exported to England for fireplaces. They were also brought to America in the 17th and 18th centuries for fireplaces, hearths, and roofs. Many of them were highly orna- mented with various designs. The discovery of transferring designs by printing from pa- per to earthenware about 1752 created numer- ous imitations in England, and the demand in that country was in a great measure supplied by home-printed tiles. What are called dry tiles are made in Great Britain by Prosser's TILLANDSIA 753 method. The material is dried and reduced to powder in a mill, when it is placed on slabs of plaster of Paris slightly moistened. It is then passed through fine sieves and subjected to intense pressure in steel boxes, from which the tiles are taken to a hot room and dried for a week or two and then ornamented, glazed, and fired. Drain tiles may be made of ordinary brick clay by various simple ma- chines, moved either by power or hand, usu- ally the latter, as the process is very simple. They are all made upon the principle of forc- ing the prepared clay through a cylindrical or semi-cylindrical tube over a mandrel. Some of them work the material after it has been passed through a pug mill, while others con- sist of a pug mill and tile machine combined. The uncombined machines cost from $100 to $200, and are capable of turning out by man power from 200 to 300 two-inch tiles per hour, or with one horse about 5,000 large tiles per day. The subsoil where drainage is de- sirable often contains clay of a suitable quality for their manufacture, and the machines are then taken out upon or near the fields to be drained. (See DRAINAGE, and "Farm Drain- age," by Henry F. French, New York, 1865.) TILLAMOOK, a N. W. county of Oregon, bor- dering on the Pacific ocean, bounded E. by the Coast mountains, and watered by several streams; area, 1,400 sq. m. ; pop. in 1870, 408. Tillamook bay affords a good harbor. The coast and rivers abound in fish. The greater portion of the surface is covered with gigantic forests of spruce; there are some small and fertile valleys and hills that afford pasturage. Coal and iron are found. The chief produc- tions in 1870 were 2,899 bushels of wheat, 2,719 of oats, 9,340 of potatoes, 29,340 Ibs. of butter, and 764 tons of hay. The value of live stock was $24,285. Capital, Tillamook. TILLANDSIA, a genus of endogenous plants of the BromeliaceoB or pineapple family, the characters of which are given under PINEAP- PLE. It was named in honor of Prof. Tillands, a Swedish botanist. The species are numer- ous in tropical and extra-tropical America, and are mostly epiphytes, with their foliage covered with scurfy scales ; some South Amer- ican species have very handsome white, blue, pink, or purple flowers, and are cultivated as stove plants, either on blocks of wood, in the manner of some orchids, or in baskets or pots of moss. There are eight species in the Uni- ted States, most of which are confined to Florida, and from growing upon the trunks and branches of trees they are popularly called air plants. The largest Florida species is T. utriculata, with a large tuft of leaves about 2 ft. long, which are narrow and recurved at the apex, but are much dilated and concave at the base to form a cup which contains a considera- ble quantity of water. (See PITCHER PLANTS.) Other species have this peculiarity, there being one in Brazil, the water held in the cups of which is the only locality for an aquatic spe-