(G. A. Gr.)
1The name is sometimes speltMahrāthī, with anhbefore ther, but, according to a phonetic law of the Aryan languages of western India, this is incorrect. The originalhin “Māhārāṣṭrī,” from which the word is derived, is liable to elision on coming between two vowels.2Shastri Vrajlal Kalidas, quoted by Beames inComparative Grammar, i. 102.3See B. A. Gupte inIndian Antiquary(1905), xxxiv. 27.4For details see Dr Sten Konow’s article on Māhārāṣṭrī and Marāṭhī inIndian Antiquary(1903), xxxii. 180 seq.5For the explanation of these terms seeIndo-Aryan Languages.6Abbreviations: Skr. = Sanskrit. Pr. = Māhārāṣṭrī Prakrit. M. = Marathi.7Fuller information regarding all the above postpositions will be found in G. A. Grierson’s article “On Certain Suffixes in the Modern Indo-Aryan Vernaculars,” on pp. 473 seq. of theZeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschungfor 1903.8See, however, Hoernle,Comparative Grammar, p. 364.
1The name is sometimes speltMahrāthī, with anhbefore ther, but, according to a phonetic law of the Aryan languages of western India, this is incorrect. The originalhin “Māhārāṣṭrī,” from which the word is derived, is liable to elision on coming between two vowels.
2Shastri Vrajlal Kalidas, quoted by Beames inComparative Grammar, i. 102.
3See B. A. Gupte inIndian Antiquary(1905), xxxiv. 27.
4For details see Dr Sten Konow’s article on Māhārāṣṭrī and Marāṭhī inIndian Antiquary(1903), xxxii. 180 seq.
5For the explanation of these terms seeIndo-Aryan Languages.
6Abbreviations: Skr. = Sanskrit. Pr. = Māhārāṣṭrī Prakrit. M. = Marathi.
7Fuller information regarding all the above postpositions will be found in G. A. Grierson’s article “On Certain Suffixes in the Modern Indo-Aryan Vernaculars,” on pp. 473 seq. of theZeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschungfor 1903.
8See, however, Hoernle,Comparative Grammar, p. 364.
MARATHON,, a plain on the N.E. coast of Attica, divided from the plain of Athens by the range of Pentelicus; it contained four villages—Marathon, Probalinthos, Tricorythos and Oenoe—which originally formed an independenttetrapolisand in historical times still upheld peculiar rites and legendary associations, chiefly connected with Heracles and Theseus. In the 6th centuryB.C.it served as a base for Peisistratus (q.v.), who owned much property in that district, for securing the rest of Attica. The plain derives its fame mainly from the battle in which the Athenians and Plataeans defeated the Persians (490B.C.). The Persian force had been sent by King Darius to punish the Athenians for previous interferences in Asia and to restore their tyrant Hippias. It was probably by advice of the latter that the generals Datis and Artaphernes landed their troops, numbering perhaps 50,000, at Marathon. The Athenians, on the recommendation of their strategus Miltiades, resolved to meet this force in the open field, and sent out their full levy of 9000 heavy infantry under the polemarch Callimachus. They were joined on the way by 1000 Plataeans, but were disappointed of the assistance which they expected from Sparta. From their station at the head of the Vrana valley, which slopes down to Marathon plain, the Athenians for some days observed the Persian army, which gave no sign of proceeding to attack. After some waiting, Miltiades, who seems throughout to have played a more prominent part than his superior Callimachus, drew up the Athenian army for battle and charged down upon the enemy, whose line was formed on the level about a mile distant. The Athenian wings, whose formation had been made specially deep, broke the opposing divisions by their impact; the centre was at first overborne by the superior weight of the native Persians, but ultimately was relieved by the victorious wings, which closed in upon the Persian centre. The Persians were thereupon driven back into the sea all along the line, and, although the majority regained their ships, no less than 6400 were left dead, as against 192 Athenians. The Persian fleet, of which perhaps a detachment had been sent on before the battle, now sailed round Cape Sunium in order to effect a landing at Phalerum, close by Athens, and with the help of traitors within the walls to take the city by surprise. But Miltiades, who had suspected some plot all along, and had lately been warned by a signal on Mt Pentelicus which he interpreted as a message to the Persians, marched back the victorious army in time to defend Athens. The enemy, upon noticing his presence, did not venture a second disembarcation and retired straightway out of Greek waters. The details of the battle, and the Persian plan of campaign, are not made clear by our ancient sources, but reconstructions have been attempted by numerous modern authorities.
(M. O. B. C.)
The tumulus or “Soros” was excavated by M. Stais in 1891 and 1892. A slight previous excavation had brought to light some prehistoric implements, and it was supposed that the mound had no connexion with the battle; but it has now been discovered that the presence of those prehistoric objects was accidental. Underlying the mound was found a stratum about 85 ft. long by 20 broad, consisting of a layer of sand, above which lay the ashes and bones of many corpses; together with these were the remains of many lecythi and other vases, some of them contemporary with the Persian wars, some of them of much earlier style, and probably taken in the emergency from neighbouring cemeteries. It is conjectured with some probability that a large vase containing ashes may have been used as the burial urn of one of the Athenian generals who fell. There was also, in the middle of the stratum, a trench for funeral offerings about 30 ft. by 3; it contained bones of beasts, with ashes and fragments of vases. There can therefore be no doubt that the tumulus was piled up to commemorate the Athenians who fell in the battle, and that it marks the place where the carnage was thickest. A selection from the contents of the tumulus has been placed in the National Museum at Athens.
(E. Gr.)
See Herodotus vi. 102-117; W. M. Leake,The Topography of Athens(London, 1841), ii. 203-227; R. W. Macan,Herodotus, iv.-vi. (London, 1895), ii. 149-248; G. B. Grundy,The Great Persian War(London, 1901), pp. 145-194; J. A. Munro inJournal of Hellenic Studies, 1899, pp. 186-197. For the tumulus,Ἀρχαιολογικὸν Δελτίον1891, pp. 67 sqq. See alsoMiltiades.
See Herodotus vi. 102-117; W. M. Leake,The Topography of Athens(London, 1841), ii. 203-227; R. W. Macan,Herodotus, iv.-vi. (London, 1895), ii. 149-248; G. B. Grundy,The Great Persian War(London, 1901), pp. 145-194; J. A. Munro inJournal of Hellenic Studies, 1899, pp. 186-197. For the tumulus,Ἀρχαιολογικὸν Δελτίον1891, pp. 67 sqq. See alsoMiltiades.
MARAZION,a small seaport in the St Ives parliamentary division of Cornwall, England, on the shore of Mount’s Bay, 2 m. E. of Penzance, served by the Great Western railway. Pop. (1901), 1251. A causeway of boulders and pebbles, thrown up by the sea and passable at low tide, unites Marazion with the insular St Michael’s Mount (q.v.). The church of St Hilary, destroyed by fire in 1853, had a very fine spire, which has beenfaithfully reproduced in the restored building. Unusual archaeological interest attaches to the churchyard. Its inscribed stones date from the 4th century, one being in honour of Constantine the Great. Another has Cornish lettering, which can no longer be deciphered; and there are British and Roman crosses. Market gardening and fishing are the main industries.
The charter attributed to Robert count of Mortain, granting lands and liberties to St Michael’s Mount, opposite Marazion, included a market on Thursdays. This appears to have been held from the first on the mainland. From it is probably derived the Marghasbigan (Parvum Forum) of the earlier and the Marghasyewe or Marketjew (Forum Jovis) of the later charters. It may be added that a Jewish origin has been ascribed to the place from the name Marketjew. It is certain that Richard king of the Romans provided that the three fairs, on the two feasts of St Michael and at Mid-Lent, and the three markets which had hitherto been held by the priors of St Michael’s Mount on land not their own at Marghasbighan, should in future be held on their own land at Marchadyou. He transferred in fact the fairs and markets from the demesne lands of the Bloyous in Marazion to those of the prior. To remedy the loss incurred by this measure Ralph Bloyou in 1331 procured for himself and his heirs a market on Mondays and a fair on the vigil, feast and morrow of St Andrew at Marghasyon. In Leland’s time the market was held at Marhasdeythyow (Forum Jovis), and both Norden (1582) and Carew (1602) tell us that Marcajewe signifies the Thursday’s market, which, whether etymologically sound or not, shows that the prior’s market had prevailed over its rival. In 1595 Queen Elizabeth granted to Marazion a charter of incorporation. This ratified the grant of St Andrew’s fair, provided for another on the Feast of St Barnabas and established a market on Saturdays. The corporation was to consist of a mayor, 8 aldermen and 12 capital burgesses. This corporation continued to administer the affairs of the borough until it was dissolved under the Municipal Corporations Act in 1835, when the property belonging to it was vested in charity commissioners. The chairman of the commissioners retains possession of the regalia. Of the fairs only the Michaelmas fair has survived and all the markets have gone. It is frequently stated that Marazion had formerly the right of returning two members to parliament, but that owing to its inability to pay the members’ expenses the right was lost. Under the Commonwealth an attempt was made to secure or recover the right, and two members are said to have been returned, but they were not allowed to take their seats. Remains of an ancient bronze furnace, discovered near the town, tend to prove that tin-smelting was practised here at an early period. Marazion was once a flourishing town, and owed its prosperity to the throng of pilgrims who came to visit St Michael’s Mount. During the first half of the 16th century it was twice plundered; first by the French, and later by the Cornish rebels. The rise and progress of the neighbouring borough of Penzance in the 17th century was the undoing of Marazion.
MARBLE(from Lat.marmar, Gr.μάρμαρος, shining stone), a term applied to any limestone or dolomite which is sufficiently close in texture to admit of being polished. Many other ornamental stones—such as serpentine, alabaster and even granite—are sometimes loosely designated marble, but by accurate writers the term is invariably restricted to those crystalline and compact varieties of carbonate of lime (occasionally with carbonate of magnesia) which, when polished, are applicable to purposes of decoration. The crystalline structure is typically shown in statuary marble. A fractured surface of this stone displays a multitude of sparkling facets, which are the rhombohedral cleavage-planes of the component grains. The beautiful lustre of polished statuary marble is due to the light penetrating for a short distance into the rock and then suffering reflection at the surfaces of the deeper-lying crystals. The durability of marble in a dry atmosphere or when protected from rain renders it a valuable building stone (q.v.); on the other hand, when exposed to the weather or the acid atmosphere of large cities, its surface readily crumbles.
Statuary and Economic Marbles.—Among statuary marbles the first place may be assigned to the famous Pentelic marble, the material in which Pheidias, Praxiteles, and other Greek sculptors executed their principal works. The characteristics of this stone are well seen in the Elgin marbles, which were removed from the Parthenon at Athens, and are now at the British Museum. The marble was derived from the quarries of Mount Pentelicus in Attica. Several large buildings have recently been constructed with this marble in London. The neighbouring mountain of Hymettus likewise yielded marbles, but these were neither so pure in colour nor so fine in texture as those of Pentelicus. Parian marble, another stone much used by Greek sculptors and architects, was quarried in the isle of Paros, chiefly at Mount Marpessa. It is called by ancient writerslychnites(from the Gr.λύχνος, a lamp) in allusion to the fact that the quarries were worked by the light of lamps. The Venus de’ Medici is a notable example of work in this material. Carrara marble is better known than any of the Greek marbles, inasmuch as it constitutes the stone invariably employed by the best sculptors of the present day. This marble occurs abundantly in the Apuan Alps, an offshoot of the Apennines, and is largely worked in the neighbourhood of Carrara, Massa and Serravezza. Stone from this district was employed in Rome for architectural purposes in the time of Augustus, but the finer varieties, adapted to the needs of the sculptor, were not discovered until some time later. It is in Carrara marble that the finest works of Michelangelo and of Canova are executed. The purest varieties of this stone are of snow-white colour and of fine saccharoidal texture. Silica is disseminated through some of the marble, becoming a source of annoyance to the workman; while occasionally it separates as beautifully pellucid crystals of quartz known as “Carrara diamonds.” The geological age of the marbles of the Apuan Alps has been a subject of much dispute, some geologists regarding them as metamorphosed Triassic, Liassic or Rhaetic rocks. Much of the common marble is of a bluish colour, and therefore unfit for statuary purposes; when streaked with blue and grey veins the stone is known asbardiglio. Curiously enough, the common white marble of Tuscany comes to England as Sicilian marble—a name probably due to its having been formerly re-shipped from some port in Sicily.
Although crystalline marbles fit for statuary work are not found to any extent in Great Britain, the limestones of the Palaeozoic formations yield a great variety of marbles well suited for architectural purposes. The Devonian rocks of south Devon are rich in handsome marbles, presenting great diversity of tint and pattern. Plymouth, Torquay, Ipplepen, Babbacombe and Chudleigh may be named as the principal localities. Many of these limestones owe their beauty to the fossil corals which they contain, and are hence known as “madrepore marbles.”
Of far greater importance than the marbles of the Devonian system are those of Carboniferous age. It is from the Carboniferous or Mountain Limestone that British marbles are mainly derived. Marbles of this age are worked in Derbyshire and Yorkshire, in the neighbourhood of Bristol, in North Wales, in the Isle of Man, and in various parts of Ireland. One of the most beautiful of these stones is the “encrinital marble,” a material which owes its peculiarities to the presence of numerous encrinites, or stone-lilies. These fossils, when cut in various directions, give a characteristic pattern to the stone. The joints of the stems and arms are known from their shape as “wheel-stones,” and the rock itself has been called “entrochal marble.” The most beautiful varieties are those in which the calcareous fossils appear as white markings on a ground of grey limestone. In Belgium a black marble with small sections of crinoid stems is known aspetit granit, while in Derbyshire a similar rock, crowded with fragments of minute encrinites, is termed “bird’s-eye marble.”
Perhaps the most generally useful marbles yielded by the Carboniferous system are the black varieties, which are largely employed for chimney-pieces, vases, and other ornamental objects. The colour of most black limestone is due to the presence of bituminous matter. Such limestone commonlyemits a fetid odour when struck; and the colour, being of organic origin, is discharged on calcination. Black marbles, more or less dense in colour, are quarried in various parts of Ireland, especially at Kilkenny and near Galway, but the finest kind is obtained from near Ashford in Derbyshire. From Ashford is also derived a very beautiful stone known as “rosewood marble.” This is a dense brown laminated limestone, displaying when polished a handsome pattern somewhat resembling the grain of rosewood; it occurs in very limited quantity, and is used chiefly for inlaid work. The black marble of Frosterley, Yorkshire, is another Carboniferous example which owes its “figure” or pattern to the presence of large corals.
With the rosewood marble may be compared the well-known “landscape marble” or Cotham stone, an argillaceous limestone with peculiar dendritic markings, due probably to the infiltration of water containing oxide of manganese. This limestone occurs in irregular masses near the base of the White Lias, or uppermost division of the Rhaetic series. It is found principally in the neighbourhood of Bristol. The arborescent forms depicted in bluish-grey upon this landscape marble form a marked contrast to the angular markings of warm brown colour which are seen on slabs of “ruin marble” from Florence—a stone occasionally known also as landscape stone, orpietra paesina.
British limestones of Secondary and Tertiary age are not generally compact enough to be used as marbles, but some of the shelly beds are employed to a limited extent for decorative purposes. “Ammonite marble” is a dark brown limestone from the Lower Lias of Somersetshire, crowded with ammonites, principallyA. planicostata. Under the name of Forest marble, geologists recognize a local division of the Lower Oolitic series, so named by W. Smith from Wychwood Forest in Oxfordshire, where shelly limestones occur; and these, though of little economic value, are capable of being used as rough marbles. But the most important marbles of the Secondary series are the shelly limestones of the Purbeck formation. Purbeck marble was a favourite material with medieval architects, who used it freely for slender clustered columns and for sepulchral monuments. It consists of a mass of the shells of a fresh-water snail,Paludina carinifera, embedded in a blue, grey or greenish limestone, and is found in the Upper Purbeck beds of Swanage in Dorsetshire. Excellent examples of its use may be seen in Westminster Abbey and in the Temple Church, as well as in the cathedrals of Salisbury, Winchester, Worcester and Lincoln. Sussex marble is a very similar stone, occurring in thin beds in the Weald clay, and consisting largely of the shells ofPaludina, principallyP. sussexiensisandP. fluviorum. The altar stones and the episcopal chair in Canterbury Cathedral are of this material.
Certain calcareous metamorphic rocks frequently form stones which are sufficiently beautiful to be used for ornamental purposes, and are generally classed as marbles. Such serpentinous limestones are included by petrologists under the term “ophicalcite.” The famousverde anticois a rock of this character. Mona marble is an ophicalcite from the metamorphic series of the Isle of Anglesey, while the “Irish green” of architects is a similar rock from Connemara in western Galway. It is notable that some of the “white marble” of Connemara has been found by W. King and T. H. Rowney to consist almost wholly of malacolite, a silicate of calcium and magnesium.
A beautiful marble has been worked to a limited extent in the island of Tiree, one of the Hebrides, but the quarry appears to be now exhausted. This Tiree marble is a limestone having a delicate carnelian colour diffused through it in irregular patches, and containing rounded crystals of sahlite, a green augitic mineral resembling malacolite in composition.
Many marbles which are prized for the variegated patterns they display owe these patterns to their formation in concentric zones—such marbles being in fact stalagmitic deposits of carbonate of lime, sometimes consisting of aragonite. One of the most beautiful stalagmitic rocks is the so-called onyx marble of Algeria. This stone was largely used in the buildings of Carthage and Rome, but the quarries which yielded it were not known to modern sculptors until 1849, when it was rediscovered near Oued-Abdallah. The stone is a beautifully translucent material, delicately clouded with yellow and brown, and is greatly prized by French workmen. Large deposits of a very fine onyx-like marble, similar to the Algerian stone, have been worked at Técali, about 35 miles from the city of Mexico. Among other stalagmitic marbles, mention may be made of the well-known Gibraltar stone, which is often worked into models of cannon and other ornamental objects. This stalagmite is much deeper in colour and less translucent than the onyx marbles of Algeria and Mexico. A richly tinted stalagmitic stone worked in California is known as Californian marble. It is worth noting that the “alabaster” of the ancients was stalagmitic carbonate of lime, and that this stone is therefore called by mineralogists “Oriental alabaster” in order to distinguish it from our modern “alabaster,” which is a sulphate, and not a carbonate, of lime. Gypsum capable of taking a polish is found at Fauld in Staffordshire and in Italy and Spain.
The brown and yellow colours which stalagmitic marbles usually present are due to the presence of oxide of iron. This colouring matter gives special characters to certain stones, such as thegiallo antico, or antique yellow marble of the Italian antiquaries. Siena marble is a reddish mottled stone obtained from the neighbourhood of Siena in Tuscany; and a somewhat similar stone is found in King’s County, Ireland. True red marble is by no means common, but it does occur, of bright and uniform colour, though in very small quantity, in the Carboniferous limestone of Derbyshire and north-east Staffordshire. The red marble calledrosso anticois often confounded with theporfiro rosso antico, which is really a mica-hornblende porphyrite owing its red colour to the mineral withamite.
Fire marble is the name given to a brown shelly limestone containing ammonites and other fossil shells, which present a brilliant display of iridescent colours, like those of precious opal. It occurs in rocks of Liassic age at the lead-mines of Bleiberg in Carinthia, and is worked into snuff-boxes and other small objects. By mineralogists it is often termedlumachella, an Italian name which may, however, be appropriately applied to any marble which contains small shells.
The quarries of France, Belgium, Italy and Spain, not to mention less important localities, yield a great diversity of marbles, and almost each stone bears a distinctive name, often of trivial meaning; but in this article it is impossible to enumerate the local names used by marble-workers in different countries to distinguish the various stones which pass under their hands.
America possesses some valuable deposits of marble, which in the eastern States have been extensively worked. The crystalline limestones of western New England furnish an abundance of white and grey marble, while a beautiful material fit for statuary work has been quarried near Rutland in Vermont. A grey bird’s-eye marble is obtained from central New York, and the greyish clouded limestones of Thomaston in Maine have been extensively quarried. Of the variegated and coloured marbles, perhaps the most beautiful are those from the northern part of Vermont, in the neighbourhood of Lake Champlain. A fine brecciated marble is found on the Maryland side of the Potomac, below Point of Rocks. Among the principal localities for black marble may be mentioned Shoreham in Vermont and Glen Falls in New York. In 1908 the American States producing marble were, in order of value, Vermont, Georgia, Tennessee, New York, Massachusetts, Alabama, Pennsylvania, Maryland, California, Colorado, Alaska, N. Carolina, Kentucky, New Mexico, Utah, Missouri and Idaho. In Canada the crystalline limestones of the pre-Cambrian series yield beautiful marbles.
In India we find important quarries at Makrana in Rajputana,—a locality which is said to have yielded the marble for the famous Taj Mahal at Agra. In the valley of the Nerbudda, near Jabalpur, there is a large development of marble. The white marble which is used for the delicately pierced screens calledjaleework is obtained from near Raialo, in Ulwar.
(F. W. R.*)
Petrography.—Marbles are uniformly crystalline, and hence have no bedding or schistosity which would tend to make them fissile,but are entirely massive and free from grain. The microstructure of pure marble is comparatively simple. In thin sections they are seen to be built up of somewhat rounded grains of calcite, fitting closely together in a mosaic; very rarely do any grains show traces of crystalline form. They are colourless and transparent, and are usually traversed by a lattice-work of sharply defined cleavage cracks, which correspond to the rhombohedral faces. In polarized light the colours are pinkish or greenish white, or in very thin sections iridescent because the mineral has a very strong double refraction. They may also be crossed by bars or stripes, each of which indicates a twin plate, for the crystals are usually polysynthetic. This twinning may be produced by pressure acting either during the crystallization of the rock or at a later period.The purest marbles generally contain some accessory minerals, and in many of these rocks they form a considerable proportion of the whole mass. The commonest are quartz in small rounded grains, scales of colourless or pale yellow mica (muscovite and phlogopite), dark shining flakes of graphite and small crystals of pyrites or iron oxides. Even fine Carrara marble leaves a residue of this sort when dissolved in acid. Many marbles contain other minerals which are usually silicates of lime or magnesia. The list of these accessories is a very large one. Augite is very frequent and may be white (malacolite) or pale green (coccolite, sahlite, diopside); hornblende occurs as white bladed tremolite or pale green actinolite; feldspars may be present also, such as orthoclase, or more frequently some plagioclase such as albite, labradorite and anorthite; scapolite (or wernerite); various kinds of garnet; vesuvianite, spinel, forsterite, periclase, brucite, talc, zoisite and epidote, chondrodite, biotite, datolite, sphene and apatite may be mentioned as typical accessory minerals. The presence of metalliferous minerals such as galena, grey or red silver ores, zinc blende, antimonite, chalcopyrite, molybdenite, cassiterite, usually indicates impregnation by ore-bearing solutions, especially if these substances occur in workable quantities. The rubies of Burma are found in crystalline limestones and are constantly accompanied by precious spinel (or balas-ruby).These minerals represent impurities in the original limestone which crystallized at the time that the marble became crystalline. The silicates derive their silica mainly from sand or infiltrated siliceous deposits; the alumina represents an admixture of clay; the iron came from limonite or hematite in the original state of the rock. Where the silicates bulk largely because the original limestone was highly impure, all the carbonic acid may be driven out and replaced by silica during the process of recrystallization. The rock is then a calc-silicate rock, hard, tough, flinty and no longer readily soluble in acids. They are sometimes fine-grained hornstones (known as calc-silicate hornfelses). Where white minerals predominate (wollastonite, tremolite, feldspar) these rocks may have a close resemblance to marbles, but often they are green from the abundance of green augites and amphiboles, or brown (when garnet and vesuvianite are present in quantity) or yellow (with epidote, chondrodite or sphene). Decomposition induces further changes in colour owing to the formation of green or yellow serpentine, pale green talc, red hematite, and brown limonite. Most of the coloured or variegated crystalline marbles have originated in this manner. Often bands of calc-silicate rock alternate with bands of marble, and they may be folded or bent; in other cases, nodules and patches of silicates occur in a matrix of pure marble. Earth movements may shatter the rocks, producing fissures afterwards filled with veins of calcite; in this way the beautiful brecciated or veined marbles are produced. Sometimes the broken fragments are rolled and rounded by the flow of the marble under pressure and pseudo-conglomerates or “crush conglomerates” result. In other cases the banding of the marble indicates the original bedding of the calcareous sediments. Crystalline limestones which contain much mica may be called cipollins; in them quartz, garnet and hornblende often also occur. The ophicalcites are marbles containing much serpentine, which has been formed by the decomposition of forsterite, olivine or augite. The much-discussedEozoon, at one time supposed to be the earliest known fossil and found in Archaean limestones in Canada, is now known to be inorganic and to belong to the ophicalcites.Many marbles, probably all of them, are metamorphosed limestones. The passage of limestones rich in fossils into true marbles as they approach great crystalline intrusions of granite is a phenomenon seen in many parts of the world; occasionally the recrystallization of the rock has not completely obliterated the organic structures (e.g.at Carrara and at Bergen in Norway). The agencies which have induced the metamorphism are heat and pressure, the heat arising from the granite and the pressure from overlying masses of rock, for these changes took place before the granite cooled and while it was still deeply buried beneath the surface. In 1806 Sir James Hall described a series of experiments proving this. He enclosed chalk in a gun-barrel securely plugged and heated it to a high temperature in a furnace. Carbonic acid was given off by the chalk and produced a great pressure in the interior of the tube. After slow cooling the mass was found to have become converted into granular crystalline marble. As rocks which have undergone changes of this kind are commonest in the oldest and deepest layers of the earth’s crust, most marbles are Palaeozoic or pre-Cambrian. They occur very often with mica schists, phyllites, &c., which were beds of clay alternating with the original limestone. Formerly it was supposed that some of these marbles were crystalline sediments or even igneous rocks, but the tendency of modern geology is to assume that they were ordinary limestones, many of which may have been fossiliferous. In regions where the sedimentary rocks have been converted into schists, gneisses and granulites, the limestones are represented by calc schists, cipollins and marbles. Often no granite or other intrusive rock is present which may be regarded as the cause of the metamorphism. The marbles are often banded or schistose, and under the microscope show crushing and deformation of the component crystals, such as would have been produced by the earth pressures which accompany rock-folding. These crush structures have been obtained experimentally in marbles subjected to great pressures in steel cylinders. In the recrystallization of these limestones the direct heating action of igneous intrusions may have played no part, but the rise of temperature and increase of pressure due to the folding of great rock masses have probably been the operating causes. This type of metamorphism has been distinguished by the namemarmarosis(Sir A. Geikie,Text Book of Geology, 1882).For descriptions of ancient marbles see F. Corsi,Delle pietre antiche(Rome, 1845); M. W. Porter,What Rome was built with(Oxford, 1907), and for marbles in general consult E. Hull,Building and Ornamental Stones(1872); G. P. Merrill,Stones for Building and Decoration(3rd ed., 1905, New York).
Petrography.—Marbles are uniformly crystalline, and hence have no bedding or schistosity which would tend to make them fissile,but are entirely massive and free from grain. The microstructure of pure marble is comparatively simple. In thin sections they are seen to be built up of somewhat rounded grains of calcite, fitting closely together in a mosaic; very rarely do any grains show traces of crystalline form. They are colourless and transparent, and are usually traversed by a lattice-work of sharply defined cleavage cracks, which correspond to the rhombohedral faces. In polarized light the colours are pinkish or greenish white, or in very thin sections iridescent because the mineral has a very strong double refraction. They may also be crossed by bars or stripes, each of which indicates a twin plate, for the crystals are usually polysynthetic. This twinning may be produced by pressure acting either during the crystallization of the rock or at a later period.
The purest marbles generally contain some accessory minerals, and in many of these rocks they form a considerable proportion of the whole mass. The commonest are quartz in small rounded grains, scales of colourless or pale yellow mica (muscovite and phlogopite), dark shining flakes of graphite and small crystals of pyrites or iron oxides. Even fine Carrara marble leaves a residue of this sort when dissolved in acid. Many marbles contain other minerals which are usually silicates of lime or magnesia. The list of these accessories is a very large one. Augite is very frequent and may be white (malacolite) or pale green (coccolite, sahlite, diopside); hornblende occurs as white bladed tremolite or pale green actinolite; feldspars may be present also, such as orthoclase, or more frequently some plagioclase such as albite, labradorite and anorthite; scapolite (or wernerite); various kinds of garnet; vesuvianite, spinel, forsterite, periclase, brucite, talc, zoisite and epidote, chondrodite, biotite, datolite, sphene and apatite may be mentioned as typical accessory minerals. The presence of metalliferous minerals such as galena, grey or red silver ores, zinc blende, antimonite, chalcopyrite, molybdenite, cassiterite, usually indicates impregnation by ore-bearing solutions, especially if these substances occur in workable quantities. The rubies of Burma are found in crystalline limestones and are constantly accompanied by precious spinel (or balas-ruby).
These minerals represent impurities in the original limestone which crystallized at the time that the marble became crystalline. The silicates derive their silica mainly from sand or infiltrated siliceous deposits; the alumina represents an admixture of clay; the iron came from limonite or hematite in the original state of the rock. Where the silicates bulk largely because the original limestone was highly impure, all the carbonic acid may be driven out and replaced by silica during the process of recrystallization. The rock is then a calc-silicate rock, hard, tough, flinty and no longer readily soluble in acids. They are sometimes fine-grained hornstones (known as calc-silicate hornfelses). Where white minerals predominate (wollastonite, tremolite, feldspar) these rocks may have a close resemblance to marbles, but often they are green from the abundance of green augites and amphiboles, or brown (when garnet and vesuvianite are present in quantity) or yellow (with epidote, chondrodite or sphene). Decomposition induces further changes in colour owing to the formation of green or yellow serpentine, pale green talc, red hematite, and brown limonite. Most of the coloured or variegated crystalline marbles have originated in this manner. Often bands of calc-silicate rock alternate with bands of marble, and they may be folded or bent; in other cases, nodules and patches of silicates occur in a matrix of pure marble. Earth movements may shatter the rocks, producing fissures afterwards filled with veins of calcite; in this way the beautiful brecciated or veined marbles are produced. Sometimes the broken fragments are rolled and rounded by the flow of the marble under pressure and pseudo-conglomerates or “crush conglomerates” result. In other cases the banding of the marble indicates the original bedding of the calcareous sediments. Crystalline limestones which contain much mica may be called cipollins; in them quartz, garnet and hornblende often also occur. The ophicalcites are marbles containing much serpentine, which has been formed by the decomposition of forsterite, olivine or augite. The much-discussedEozoon, at one time supposed to be the earliest known fossil and found in Archaean limestones in Canada, is now known to be inorganic and to belong to the ophicalcites.
Many marbles, probably all of them, are metamorphosed limestones. The passage of limestones rich in fossils into true marbles as they approach great crystalline intrusions of granite is a phenomenon seen in many parts of the world; occasionally the recrystallization of the rock has not completely obliterated the organic structures (e.g.at Carrara and at Bergen in Norway). The agencies which have induced the metamorphism are heat and pressure, the heat arising from the granite and the pressure from overlying masses of rock, for these changes took place before the granite cooled and while it was still deeply buried beneath the surface. In 1806 Sir James Hall described a series of experiments proving this. He enclosed chalk in a gun-barrel securely plugged and heated it to a high temperature in a furnace. Carbonic acid was given off by the chalk and produced a great pressure in the interior of the tube. After slow cooling the mass was found to have become converted into granular crystalline marble. As rocks which have undergone changes of this kind are commonest in the oldest and deepest layers of the earth’s crust, most marbles are Palaeozoic or pre-Cambrian. They occur very often with mica schists, phyllites, &c., which were beds of clay alternating with the original limestone. Formerly it was supposed that some of these marbles were crystalline sediments or even igneous rocks, but the tendency of modern geology is to assume that they were ordinary limestones, many of which may have been fossiliferous. In regions where the sedimentary rocks have been converted into schists, gneisses and granulites, the limestones are represented by calc schists, cipollins and marbles. Often no granite or other intrusive rock is present which may be regarded as the cause of the metamorphism. The marbles are often banded or schistose, and under the microscope show crushing and deformation of the component crystals, such as would have been produced by the earth pressures which accompany rock-folding. These crush structures have been obtained experimentally in marbles subjected to great pressures in steel cylinders. In the recrystallization of these limestones the direct heating action of igneous intrusions may have played no part, but the rise of temperature and increase of pressure due to the folding of great rock masses have probably been the operating causes. This type of metamorphism has been distinguished by the namemarmarosis(Sir A. Geikie,Text Book of Geology, 1882).
For descriptions of ancient marbles see F. Corsi,Delle pietre antiche(Rome, 1845); M. W. Porter,What Rome was built with(Oxford, 1907), and for marbles in general consult E. Hull,Building and Ornamental Stones(1872); G. P. Merrill,Stones for Building and Decoration(3rd ed., 1905, New York).
(J. S. F.)
MARBLEHEAD,a township of Essex county, Massachusetts, U.S.A., occupying a rocky promontory on Massachusetts Bay, about 16 m. N. of Boston. Pop. (1890), 8202; (1900), 7582; (1905), 7209; (1910), 7338. Area, about 4 sq. m. Marblehead is served by the Boston & Maine railroad, and by electric railways connecting with Salem, Lynn and Boston. It is a quaint old town, with a number of houses dating back to the 17th and 18th centuries. Among the older buildings are the Lee mansion (1768), St Michael’s church (P. E., 1714), and the old town-hall (1727), sometimes called Marblehead’s “Cradle of Liberty.” Abbot Hall (1877), the municipal building, also contains the public library and several noteworthy paintings, including “The Spirit of ’76” or “Yankee Doodle” by Archibald M. Willard. The post office and custom-house was completed in 1904. There are several parks (Crocker, Fort Sewall, Seaside, and Fountain), and an old burying-ground, in which many of the early settlers and a number of soldiers of the War of Independence (including General John Glover) are buried; and a granite monument near the railway station commemorates the taking of the British supply and powder ship “Hope” off Marblehead in 1776 by Captain James Mugford, who was killed during the fight. The commodious harbour, nearly landlocked, is formed by a rocky peninsula known as Marblehead Neck. On this are the club-houses of the Eastern and Corinthian Yacht clubs; and Marblehead is a popular yachting centre. The manufacture of children’s shoes is the principal industry. Shipbuilding, once important, has been superseded by yacht and launch construction.
Marblehead, originally a part of Salem, known as Marble Harbor, was settled about 1629 by English emigrants (probably mostly from Lincolnshire and Devonshire); later (after about 1700) many emigrants from the Channel Islands settled here, and to them the dialectical peculiarities of Marblehead have often (perhaps mistakenly) been attributed. Marblehead was separately incorporated as a town in 1649. In the colonial period Marblehead was an important commercial port, and at one time was one of the most populous places in Massachusetts. After the passage of the Boston Port Bill (1774) it was made the port of entry instead of Boston, but its merchants refused to take advantage of this opportunity and patriotically invited the Boston merchants to use their wharves and warehouses. During the War of Independence many “state cruisers” (chartered at the Continental expense) set out from this port, the most famous being the “Lee,” commanded by John Manley1(1733-93); in November 1775 this cruiser captured the “Nancy” with military stores valued at £20,541, which were taken to the American army at Cambridge. The “Lee” was manned by fifty men of the “amphibious regiment,” which under General John Glover (1732-1797) rendered invaluable services toWashington in conveying his troops across the East River after the battle of Long Island, and later in ferrying them across the Delaware before the battle of Trenton. Marblehead furnished more than 1000 men to the Continental army. During the war of 1812 the sea fight between the “Chesapeake” and the “Shannon” took place (June 1, 1813) off the adjacent coast. Marblehead was the scene of Benjamin (nicknamed “Flood”) Ireson’s ride, immortalized by J. G. Whittier.
See Samuel Roads, jun.,The History and Traditions of Marblehead(Boston, 1880; 3rd ed., Marblehead, 1897).
See Samuel Roads, jun.,The History and Traditions of Marblehead(Boston, 1880; 3rd ed., Marblehead, 1897).
1See Robert E. Peabody, “Naval Career of Captain John Manley of Marblehead”, inEssex Institute Historical Collections(Salem, Mass.) for January 1909.
1See Robert E. Peabody, “Naval Career of Captain John Manley of Marblehead”, inEssex Institute Historical Collections(Salem, Mass.) for January 1909.
MARBLES,a children’s game of great antiquity, wide distribution, and uncertain origin, played with small spheres of stone, glass, baked clay or other material, from one-third of an inch to two inches in diameter. The game was once popular with all classes. Tradition, both at Oxford and Cambridge, attests that the game was formerly prohibited among undergraduates on the steps of the Bodleian or the Senate House. There is a similar tradition at Westminster School that the boys were forbidden to play marbles in Westminster Hall on account of the complaints made by members of parliament and lawyers. An anonymous poem of the 17th century speaks of a boy about to leave Eton as
“A dunce at syntax, but a dab at taw.”
Rogers, inThe Pleasures of Memory, recalls how
“On yon grey stone that fronts the chancel-door,Worn smooth by busy feet, now seen no more,Each eve we shot the marble through the ring.”
“On yon grey stone that fronts the chancel-door,
Worn smooth by busy feet, now seen no more,
Each eve we shot the marble through the ring.”
Defoe (1720) writes of the seer Duncan Campbell: “Marbles, which he used to call children’s playing at bowls, yielded him mighty diversion; and he was so dexterous an artist at shooting that little alabaster globe from between the end of his forefinger and the knuckle of his thumb, that he seldom missed hitting plumb, as the boys call it, the marble he aimed at, though at the distance of two or three yards.” Thelocus classicuson marbles in the 19th century is in the trial inPickwick, where Serjeant Buzfuz pathetically says of Master Bardell that “his ‘alley tors’ and his ‘commoneys’ are alike neglected; he forgets the long familiar cry of ‘knuckle down,’ and at tip-cheese, or odd and even, his hand is out.” Many similar passages might be adduced to prove the former popularity of marbles with the young of all classes. In some rural parts of Sussex Good Friday was known as “marble-day” till late in the 19th century, since on that day both old and young, including many who would never have thought of playing marbles at other times, took part in the game. There was some traditional reason for regarding marbles as a Lenten sport—perhaps, as the Rev. W. D. Parish suggests, “to keep people from more boisterous and mischievous enjoyments.”
The origin of the game is concealed in the mists of antiquity. Marbles used by Egyptian and Roman children before the Christian era are to be seen in the British Museum. Probably some of the small stone spheres found among neolithic remains, which Evans (Ancient Stone Implements, 2nd ed., p. 420) admits to be too small for projectiles, are prehistoric marbles. It is commonly assumed that the game which the youthful Augustus, like other Roman children, played with nuts was a form of marbles, and that the Latin phrase ofrelinquere nuces, in the sense of putting away childish things, referred to this game. Strutt believed that nuts of the roundest sort were the original “marbles.” The earliest unmistakable reference to marbles in literature seems to be in a French poem of the 12th century, quoted by Littrés.v.Bille.
The marbles with which various games are nowadays played are small spheres of stone, glass or baked clay. In the 18th century they were mostly made from chips of marble (whence the name) or other stone, which were ground into a roughly spherical shape by attrition in a special iron mill. Nuremberg was then the centre of the trade in marbles, though some were made in Derbyshire, and indeed wherever there was a stonemason’s yard to afford raw material. The “alley taw,” as its name indicates, was made of alabaster. In the first decade of the 20th century English marbles were all imported from central Germany, and the alleys, or most valuable marbles, used for shooting, were mostly made of coloured glass, sold retail from ten a penny to a penny each. Coloured stone marbles and so-called china marbles—really of baked clay—were sold at prices varying from forty to a hundred a penny, though even the cheapest of these were painted by hand with concentric rings. The well-made and highly valued alleys of earlier times were no longer procurable, owing to the decline in popularity of the sport. In the United States, however, much more expensive and accurately rounded marbles were still manufactured, the latest being of hollow steel.
There has never been any recognized authority on the game of marbles, and it is probable that, in the past as in the present, every parish and school and set of boys made its own rules. There are, however, three or four distinct games which are traditional, and may be found, with trifling variations, wherever the game is played. Strutt, writing at the end of the 18th century, describes these as follows: (1) “Taw, wherein a number of boys put each of them one or two marbles in a ring and shoot at them alternately with other marbles, and he who obtains the most of them by beating them out of the ring is the conqueror.” The marbles placed in the ring—whence the game is often known as “ring-taw”—are usually of the cheaper kind known as “commoneys,” “stoneys” or “potteys,” and the marble with which the player shoots is a more valuable one, known as an “alley,” or “alley taw,” sometimes spelt “tor,” as by Dickens. Usually it is necessary that the alley should emerge from the ring as well as drive out another marble; under other rules the ring is smaller, not more than a foot in diameter, and the player must be skilful enough to leave his alley inside it, whilst driving the object marble outside. (2) “Nine holes: which consists in bowling of marbles at a wooden bridge with nine arches.” Each arch bears a number, and the owner of the bridge pays that number of marbles to the player who shoots through it, making his profit from the missing marbles, which he confiscates; or the game may simply be played so many up—usually 100. (3) “There is also another game of marbles where four, five or six holes, and sometimes more, are made in the ground at a distance from each other; and the business of every one of the players is to bowl a marble by a regular succession into all the holes, which he who completes in the fewest bowls obtains the victory.” This primitive form of golf is played by Zulu adults with great enthusiasm, and is still popular among the car-drivers of Belfast. (4) “Boss out, or boss and span, also called hit and span, wherein one bowls a marble to any distance that he pleases, which serves as a mark for his antagonist to bowl at, whose business it is to hit the marble first bowled, or lay his own near enough to it for him to span the space between them and touch both marbles; in either case he wins, if not, his marble remains where it lay and becomes a mark for the first player, and so alternately until the game be won.” In rural parts of England this was known as a “going-to-school game,” because it helped the players along the road.Mr F. W. Hackwood states that, in the middle of the 19th century, taverns in the Black Country had regular marble alleys, consisting of a cement bed 20 ft. long by 12 ft. wide and 18 in. from the ground, with a raised wooden rim to prevent the marbles from running off. Players knelt down to shoot, and had to “knuckle down” fairly—i.e.to place the knuckle of the shooting hand on the ground, so that the flip of the thumb was not aided by a jerk of the wrist. The game was usually ring-taw. But marbles is now obsolete in England as a game for adults (Old English Sports, London, 1907).A writer inNotes and Queries(IX. ii. 314) thus describes the marbles used by English boys in the middle of the 19th century: “In ring-taw the player put only commoneys in the ring, and shot with the taws, which included stoneys, alleys and blood-alleys. Commoneys were unglazed; potteys glazed in the kiln. Stoneys were made from common pebbles such as were used for road-mending; alleys and blood-alleys out of marble. The blood-alleys were highly prized, and were called by this name because of the spots or streaks of red in them. In Derbyshire, where large numbers were made, they had relative values. The stoney was worth three commoneys or two potteys. An alley was worth six commoneys or four potteys. Blood-alleys were worth more, according to the depth and arrangement of colour—from twelve to fifty commoneys and stoneys in proportion.” “A taw with a history was prized above rubies,” another correspondent observes (IX. ii. 76). “All the best-made marbles were taws, and no commoneys or potteys were used for shooting with, either in ring-taw or the various hole-games.” In Belfast, 1854-1858, the marble season extended from Easter to June, when the ground was usually dry and hard. The marbles were stoneys, of composition painted; crockeries, of slightly glazed stone-ware, dark brown and yellow; clayeys, of red brick clay baked in the fire; marbles, of white marble; china alleys, with white glaze and painted rings; and glass marbles. The two chief games were ring-taw and hole and taw; in the latter three holes were made in a line, 6 ft. to 12 ft. apart, and the playerhad to go three times up and down according to somewhat elaborate rules (Notes and Queries, IX. iii. 65). The stoneys and crockeries were sold at twenty a penny; the clayeys were cheaper and were not used as stakes; the marbles proper and china alleys, used as taws for shooting, cost a halfpenny and a farthing respectively. In other parts of the country the phraseology of marbles affords some interesting problems for the philologist. We hear of “alleys, barios, poppos and stoneys”; of “marididdles,” home-made marbles of rolled and baked clay; in Scotland of “bools, whinnies, glassies, jauries”; of “Dutch alleys,” and so forth. “Dubs, trebs and fobs,” stand for twos, threes and fours. To be “mucked” is to lose all one’s “mivvies” or marbles. When the taw stayed in the ring it was a “chuck.” “Phobbo slips” was a phrase used to forbid the correction of an error.The fullest account of the various games of marbles played by English children is to be found in Mrs Gomme’sTraditional Games of England, Scotland and Ireland(London, 1898), under the headings Boss-out, Bridgeboard, Bun-hole, Cob, Ho-go, Holy Bang, Hundreds, Lag, Long-Tawl, Marbles, Nine-Holes, Ring-taw, Three-Holes. Other games are known as Plum-pudding, or Picking the Plums, in which one shoots at marbles in a row; Pyramids, in which the marbles are arranged in a pyramid; Bounce About, Bounce Eye, Conqueror, Die Shot, Fortifications, Handers, Increase Pound, Knock Out, Rising Taw, Spanners, Tip-shears; Strutt’sSports and Pastimes, ed. J. C. Cox (London, 1902). Much information will also be found inNotes and Queries, passim—especially the 9th series. For marbles in France see Larousse,s.v.Billes. See alsoSolitaire.
There has never been any recognized authority on the game of marbles, and it is probable that, in the past as in the present, every parish and school and set of boys made its own rules. There are, however, three or four distinct games which are traditional, and may be found, with trifling variations, wherever the game is played. Strutt, writing at the end of the 18th century, describes these as follows: (1) “Taw, wherein a number of boys put each of them one or two marbles in a ring and shoot at them alternately with other marbles, and he who obtains the most of them by beating them out of the ring is the conqueror.” The marbles placed in the ring—whence the game is often known as “ring-taw”—are usually of the cheaper kind known as “commoneys,” “stoneys” or “potteys,” and the marble with which the player shoots is a more valuable one, known as an “alley,” or “alley taw,” sometimes spelt “tor,” as by Dickens. Usually it is necessary that the alley should emerge from the ring as well as drive out another marble; under other rules the ring is smaller, not more than a foot in diameter, and the player must be skilful enough to leave his alley inside it, whilst driving the object marble outside. (2) “Nine holes: which consists in bowling of marbles at a wooden bridge with nine arches.” Each arch bears a number, and the owner of the bridge pays that number of marbles to the player who shoots through it, making his profit from the missing marbles, which he confiscates; or the game may simply be played so many up—usually 100. (3) “There is also another game of marbles where four, five or six holes, and sometimes more, are made in the ground at a distance from each other; and the business of every one of the players is to bowl a marble by a regular succession into all the holes, which he who completes in the fewest bowls obtains the victory.” This primitive form of golf is played by Zulu adults with great enthusiasm, and is still popular among the car-drivers of Belfast. (4) “Boss out, or boss and span, also called hit and span, wherein one bowls a marble to any distance that he pleases, which serves as a mark for his antagonist to bowl at, whose business it is to hit the marble first bowled, or lay his own near enough to it for him to span the space between them and touch both marbles; in either case he wins, if not, his marble remains where it lay and becomes a mark for the first player, and so alternately until the game be won.” In rural parts of England this was known as a “going-to-school game,” because it helped the players along the road.
Mr F. W. Hackwood states that, in the middle of the 19th century, taverns in the Black Country had regular marble alleys, consisting of a cement bed 20 ft. long by 12 ft. wide and 18 in. from the ground, with a raised wooden rim to prevent the marbles from running off. Players knelt down to shoot, and had to “knuckle down” fairly—i.e.to place the knuckle of the shooting hand on the ground, so that the flip of the thumb was not aided by a jerk of the wrist. The game was usually ring-taw. But marbles is now obsolete in England as a game for adults (Old English Sports, London, 1907).
A writer inNotes and Queries(IX. ii. 314) thus describes the marbles used by English boys in the middle of the 19th century: “In ring-taw the player put only commoneys in the ring, and shot with the taws, which included stoneys, alleys and blood-alleys. Commoneys were unglazed; potteys glazed in the kiln. Stoneys were made from common pebbles such as were used for road-mending; alleys and blood-alleys out of marble. The blood-alleys were highly prized, and were called by this name because of the spots or streaks of red in them. In Derbyshire, where large numbers were made, they had relative values. The stoney was worth three commoneys or two potteys. An alley was worth six commoneys or four potteys. Blood-alleys were worth more, according to the depth and arrangement of colour—from twelve to fifty commoneys and stoneys in proportion.” “A taw with a history was prized above rubies,” another correspondent observes (IX. ii. 76). “All the best-made marbles were taws, and no commoneys or potteys were used for shooting with, either in ring-taw or the various hole-games.” In Belfast, 1854-1858, the marble season extended from Easter to June, when the ground was usually dry and hard. The marbles were stoneys, of composition painted; crockeries, of slightly glazed stone-ware, dark brown and yellow; clayeys, of red brick clay baked in the fire; marbles, of white marble; china alleys, with white glaze and painted rings; and glass marbles. The two chief games were ring-taw and hole and taw; in the latter three holes were made in a line, 6 ft. to 12 ft. apart, and the playerhad to go three times up and down according to somewhat elaborate rules (Notes and Queries, IX. iii. 65). The stoneys and crockeries were sold at twenty a penny; the clayeys were cheaper and were not used as stakes; the marbles proper and china alleys, used as taws for shooting, cost a halfpenny and a farthing respectively. In other parts of the country the phraseology of marbles affords some interesting problems for the philologist. We hear of “alleys, barios, poppos and stoneys”; of “marididdles,” home-made marbles of rolled and baked clay; in Scotland of “bools, whinnies, glassies, jauries”; of “Dutch alleys,” and so forth. “Dubs, trebs and fobs,” stand for twos, threes and fours. To be “mucked” is to lose all one’s “mivvies” or marbles. When the taw stayed in the ring it was a “chuck.” “Phobbo slips” was a phrase used to forbid the correction of an error.
The fullest account of the various games of marbles played by English children is to be found in Mrs Gomme’sTraditional Games of England, Scotland and Ireland(London, 1898), under the headings Boss-out, Bridgeboard, Bun-hole, Cob, Ho-go, Holy Bang, Hundreds, Lag, Long-Tawl, Marbles, Nine-Holes, Ring-taw, Three-Holes. Other games are known as Plum-pudding, or Picking the Plums, in which one shoots at marbles in a row; Pyramids, in which the marbles are arranged in a pyramid; Bounce About, Bounce Eye, Conqueror, Die Shot, Fortifications, Handers, Increase Pound, Knock Out, Rising Taw, Spanners, Tip-shears; Strutt’sSports and Pastimes, ed. J. C. Cox (London, 1902). Much information will also be found inNotes and Queries, passim—especially the 9th series. For marbles in France see Larousse,s.v.Billes. See alsoSolitaire.