Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 06.djvu/675

EARRING. 587 EARTH. 50) that there was no pari of dress on which greater ex|>i'M>e was lavished ; and Seneea men- tions one worth a patrimony, eonsiiiting of four pearls above and below a central precious stone. Koman artists popularized for the first time the use of precious stones in earrings. It was char- acteristic that they valued them, not as the Greeks had, for beauty or workmanship, but for the value of the material. Koman earrings were therefore much less artistic, and jewels — espe- cially pearls and emeralds — replaced gold almost entirely, excluding the old methods and designs entirely. This decadence was accentuated during the later Kmpire. It is interesting to note that the Roman poets and writers speak of distinguish- ing an Oriental man by his use of the earring. Byzaxtixe axd Bakb.vkic. Proof that it still remained the custom in the East for the men to wear earrings even later, is given by several By- zantine works of art, such as the mosaics rep- resenting Justinian and Theodora at Ravenna, and ivories of later Byzantine rulers, in which the emperors as well as the empresses wear ear- rings. The type of loop earrings and those with filigree-work were, however, perpetuated even through the Early Cliristian period, with orna- ments of spirals and pellets, bands, circles, and even birds, found in Egyptian, Italian, and other tombs. The barbarous tribes of the Xorth. who destroyed Roman civilization, varied in their use of the earring. The Goths, coming from farther east, were partial to them, with hea'y gold and enamel designs: and in this they were somewhat rudely imitated by the Lombards. The Merovingian Franks atTected a simple ring, with one or more stones set in the centre. But the Anglo-Saxons hardly used any. Many, however, are found in the early graves of Belgium, France, Rhenish and Bav.irian Germany, and especially Hungary, although none approach the beauty of classic or Etruscan design. Cloisonne enamel was a novelty in techniiiie. introduced by these north- em jewelers. India. It is an interesting fact that late-Greek designs appear to have been perpetuated in In- dian jewelry. In C'l shmere and the Punjab, the style with gems and enamels, in Til)et that with heavy gold form>, in the region of Orissa and in other northern provipces, the filigree and granu- lar work. Indian earrings are the most gorgeous and artistic per[>etuation in recent times of the ancient styles. At the same time the ancient de- signs of Assyria and Phoenicia are in part per- petuated among the modern Arab and Syrian tribes. The Renaissance. The Middle Ages in Europe abandoned the earring in the circle of high life, the custom being per|>etuateil only by the peasan- try. The innumerable works of art reproducing the costume of the period between the tenth and fifteenth centuries show hardly a single earring. The change of taste came during the Renaissance, especially on the approach of the sixteenth cen- tury. The Italian jewelers furnished models for nearly all Europe, and the technii|Ue reverted to gold-work with frequent use of enameling and precious stones. The pendant type was universal- ly employed, of many shapes, based on the circle, the cross, the heart, the drop. There was every variety of style, from heavy embossed work in solid metal, often with figires in high relief, to the even more favorite form of lace-like open- work in the rather regular geometric •patterns of Vol VI —38. Renaissance design, with occasional free use of foliage and flowers, though never so realistic as in ancient jewelry. Portuguese, Spanish. Ger- nuin, French, and English work of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, while based on Italian originals, developed national character- istics: and this style, sinking into the middle and peasant classes, has been perpetuated l>y them, alongside of even more antique patterns up to the present time. It was among the jewelry of the peasants of modern Tuscany that Castellani found the lost secrets of the Etruscan jewelers. The so-called peasant jewelry of Europe, as first shown by the Paris Exhibition of 1H(>7 (now in South Kensington Museum). i)resents the only modern characteristic work comparable to that of modern India in regard to earrings as well as other branches of the art. It is an interesting fact that in many primitive parts of Europe — the Basque Provinces, Brittany, and Xormandy. southern Italy — the men as well as the women wear earrings, but usually in the form of simple rings. EAR-SHELL, or Ormer. See Abalone, EARTH, The (AS. eorpe, Icel. jorp, Goth, airfa, Teut. Hcrthii. OHG. crdc, Ger, Erde, earth; connected with Gk. epa-l^e, era-ze, on the ground, and possibly with Lat. arvitm, field. (trare. Gk. ipoOv. (irouii, OChurch Slav, orati, Ir. araim, Goth, arjun, Icel. erja, OHG. erian, dia- lectic Ger, iiren, eren, AS, erian. archaic Eng. ear, to plow). The planet on which we live, the third in order of distance from the sun, and the largest within the orbit of .Jupiter. The Form and the Magnitide of the E.rth. To a spectator so placed as to have an unolj- structed view in all directions, the earlli appears a circular plain on whose circumference the vault of heaven seems to rest. In ancient times, even philosophers looked upon the earth as a fiat disk swimming upon the water. But many ap- jiearances were soon observed to be at variance with this idea, and even in antiquity the curved form of the earth began to be suspected. It is only by assuming the earth to be curved that we can explain how our circle of vision becomes wider as our position is more elevated, and how the tops of towers, mountains, masts of ships, and the dike, come first into view as we ap- proach. There are many other proofs that the earth is a globe. Thus, as we advance from the poles toward the equator, new stars, formerly in- visible, come gradually into view: the shadow of the earth upon the moon during an eclipse is always round: the same momentary apjH'ar- ance in the heavens is seen at ditFerent hours of the day in different places on the earth's sur- face: :Jnd lastly.' since 1.519, the earth has been circunmavigated innumerable times. It is not. however, strictly true that the earth is a sphere; it is slightly flattened or compressed at two op- posite points — the poles — as has been proved by actual measurement of degrees of latitude (q.v. > and by observations of the pendulum. It is found that a degree of a meridian is not everywhere of the same linear length (see Deukee of L.ti- Ti'DE), which would be the case if the earth were a perfect sphere, but increases from the equator to the poles, from which it is rightly inferred that the earth is flattened there. A pendulum, again, of a given length is found to move faster when carried toward the poles, and more slowly when carried toward the equator;