Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 02.djvu/753

BED. began to hold receptions in bed. The canopies were of all sizes and sliapes, and suspended from the ceiling or wall. But in the Sixteenth Cen- tury columns came into use to support them, and the four-poster was created. Heavier stuffs became the rage for covers and hangings, velvets, brocades, and damasks. The bedsteads were heavily carved, and the headboards were often solid to the top of tlie canopy. The heaviest made were the English Elizabethan beds of oak — immense strup tures. Considerably lighter were the oak frames of Flander's. In France and Italy the ordinary fine bed was of carved walnut. In the Seventeenth Century the mode in France be- came lighter, with great use of laces and gauzes and of figured tapestries. That century was pre- eminently that of beautiful beds, never equaled before or since. The inventories of Louis XIV. show that this monarch had an unrivaled col- lection of 413 superb bedsteads of all forms — four-posters, pavilioned, duehesse, imperial, en housse, a pentes, etc. This uuiseum of beds in the Garde-Meuble was the wonder of all visitors. The reign of Louis XV. added only a more deli- cately fantastic ornamentation to this age of graceful design and varied coloring. The kings, queens, ministers, great ladies, and the high nobility commonly held early receptions in bed ; there was the petit lever and the grand lever. (See Levee). The ruelle was the narrow space between the wall and the head of the bed, where a person could stand concealed. This importance given to the bed insured the magniflcence of every detail. The Empire beds, in mahogany, with bronze trimmings, are comparatively monot- onous and heavy. The Colonial beds are a simpli- fication of the heavier English four-poster. At present many types are used, but even the finest bedsteads made are commonjjlace compared with the best of the past four centuries.

. Throughout the Continent of Europe beds are of the open couch form, suit- aide in width for one person. They consist of a frame or bedstead, bearing one or two hair or wool mattresses; they are often provided with curtains, hanging from the ceiling. In Germany there is a common practice of placing large, flat bags of down above the other coverings of beds for the sake of warmth, and sometimes a bed of down altogether supplies the place of blankets. In Italy corn-husk mattresses are very common. Throughout America the beds are usually of the French, or open couch form. The simplest kind of bed yet invented — except, indeed, the Oriental rug spread on the floor — is one frequently to be seen in America. The bedstead consists of a folding trestle called a cot, constructed M'ith canvas on the principle of a campstool, with a movable headboard at one end to retain the pillow. Its great advantage consists in its being easily folded up and put away in small space. -Another device for saving space is the 'folding bed' proper, which is often constructed so as to resemble when closed a bookcase or some other piece of furniture. Such beds are useful where a bedroom must serve also for a sitting-room: but there are many objections, both a-sthetic and sanitary. In America the English practice of providing a double bed instead of the Continental custom of furnishing a separate bed for each person prevails, although, largely for hygienic reasons, the single bed has become common. The English four-posted bed, or family bed, is

a gigantic piece of furniture, having a roof or canopy supported by the four posts, which are generally of mahogany, and finely turned and carved. On rods along the cornice hang cur- tains which can be drawn around the sides and foot. Lower wooden beds and beds of brass or iron have largely supplanted the old-fashioned four-poster, and are popular on account of their cleanliness and cheapness. See.

BED, or STRA'TUM. In geology, a layer or a number of layers of stratified sedimentary rock, with an approximately uniform lithological character. If shale, sandstone, and limestone succeed one another in layers, each forms an independent bed, or stratum; again, if a thick sandstone be composed of a number of layers, each of these layers, or certain groups of them, may be called 'beds,' or 'strata.' While most geologists confine the terms to layers of uniform vertical composition, there is a lack of uniformity in usage as regards the number and thickness of the layers to be included under them. For instance, 'stratum' is sometimes used as above defined, while 'bed' is applied to each of the constituent layers. Again, 'bed' and 'stratum' are used in the same sense either for a group of layers or for a single layer. The occurrence of sedimentary rocks in layers is described as 'bedding' or 'stratification.' The cause of stratification is the intermittent supply of materials for deposition, due to such causes as varying intensity of wave-action, tides, or irregular deposition from rivers. When the stratification is obscure it would seem to indicate that the materials had been supplied with little or no intermission. The individual particles of strata or beds are laid down in such a way that they tend to oppose their broader sides to the greatest stress acting upon them, which is compounded of gravity and the stress of moving water. The result is a general arrangement of the greater diameters of the mineral particles in planes parallel to the planes of bedding or stratification. See ;.

BEDAMAR, ba'da-mar'. A noble Spaniard in the Conjuration des Espagnols contre la république de Venise of Saint-Réal. The character reappears as one of the conspirators in Otway's Venice Preserved. He meets death by being broken on the wheel.

BED'BUG'. A reddish-brown, flattened, wing- less, nocturnal insect (Acanthia or Cimex lectu- larin) peculiar to the fixed habitations of man, and subsisting by sucking his blood. It repre- sents a family Acanthiidæ, or Cimicidæ, of heter- opterous bugs (Hemiptera), which. with numer- ous allied forms, live upon the juices of plants and animals; and this parasitic life has caused degeneracy, until now this species has acquired a very flat body, capable of hiding in narrow cracks, and has completely lost its wings; it has also gained the power of resisting great cold, and of fasting indefinitely, so that it easily survives long intervals between tenants in a house — a fact which often accounts for an otherwise mys- terious appearance of the pest. Its mouth con- sists of a three-parted proboscis, which can be thrust through the skin like a hollow needle, and then becomes a blood-pump. The parasite hides by day in cracks and crevices of floors, walls, and furniture, frequenting beds especially, simply because there it gets its living at night. The eggs