[1] Mersenne, _Harmonie universelle_ (Paris, 1636), p. 113, calls the
clavicytherium "une nouvelle forme d'epinette dont on use en Italie,"
and states that the action of the jacks and levers is parallel from
back to front.
[2] _Musica getutscht und auszgezogen_ (Basel, 1511).
[3] See "Une Piece unique du Musee Kraus de Florence" in _Annales de
l'alliance scientifique universelle_ (Paris, 1907).
[4] See illustration by William Gibb in A.J. Hipkins's _Musical
Instruments, Historic, Rare and Unique_ (1888).
[5] _History of the Pianoforte_, Novello's Music Primers, No. 52
(1896), p. 75.
[6] _L'Antica Musica ridotta moderna prattica_ (Rome, 1555).
CLAVIE, BURNING THE, an ancient Scottish custom still observed at
Burghead, a fishing village on the Moray Firth, near Forres. The
"clavie" is a bonfire of casks split in two, lighted on the 12th of
January, corresponding to the New Year of the old calendar. One of these
casks is joined together again by a huge nail (Lat. _clavus_; hence the
term). It is then filled with tar, lighted and carried flaming round the
village and finally up to a headland upon which stands the ruins of a
Roman altar, locally called "the Douro." It here forms the nucleus of
the bonfire, which is built up of split casks. When the burning
tar-barrel falls in pieces, the people scramble to get a lighted piece
with which to kindle the New Year's fire on their cottage hearth. The
charcoal of the clavie is collected and is put in pieces up the cottage
chimneys, to keep spirits and witches from coming down.
CLAVIERE, ETIENNE (1735-1793), French financier and politician, was a
native of Geneva. As one of the democratic leaders there he was obliged
in 1782 to take refuge in England, upon the armed interference of
France, Sardinia and Berne in favour of the aristocratic party. There he
met other Swiss, among them Marat and Etienne Dumont, but their schemes
for a new Geneva in Ireland--which the government favoured--were given
up when Necker came to power in France, and Claviere, with most of his
comrades, went to Paris. There in 1789 he and Dumont allied themselves
with Mirabeau, secretly collaborating for him on the _Courrier de
Provence_ and also in preparing the speeches which Mirabeau delivered as
his own. It was mainly by his use of Claviere that Mirabeau sustained
his reputation as a financier. But Claviere also published some
pamphlets under his own name, and through these and his friendship with
J.P. Brissot, whom he had met in London, he became minister of finance
in the Girondist ministry, from March to the 12th of June 1792. After
the 10th of August he was again given charge of the finances in the
provisional executive council, though with but indifferent success. He
shared in the fall of the Girondists, was arrested on the 2nd of June
1793, but somehow was left in prison until the 8th of December, when, on
receiving notice that he was to appear on the next day before the
Revolutionary Tribunal, he committed suicide.
CLAVIJO, RUY GONZALEZ DE (d. 1412), Spanish traveller of the 15th
century, whose narrative is the first important one of its kind
contributed to Spanish literature, was a native of Madrid, and belonged
to a family of some antiquity and position. On the return of the
ambassadors Pelayo de Sotomayor and Hernan Sanchez de Palazuelos from
the court of Timur, Henry III. of Castille determined to send another
embassy to the new lord of Western Asia, and for this purpose he
selected Clavijo, Gomez de Salazar (who died on the outward journey),
and a master of theology named Fray Alonzo Paez de Santa Maria. They
sailed from St Mary Port near Cadiz on the 22nd of May 1403, touched at
the Balearic Isles, Gaeta and Rhodes, spent some time at Constantinople,
sailed along the southern coast of the Black Sea to Trebizond, and
proceeded inland by Erzerum, the Ararat region, Tabriz, Sultanieh,
Teheran and Meshed, to Samarkand, where they were well received by the
conqueror. Their return was at last accomplished, in part after Timur's
death, and with countless difficulties and dangers, and they landed in
Spain on the 1st of March 1406. Clavijo proceeded at once to the court,
at that time in Alcala de Henares, and served as chamberlain till the
king's death (in the spring of 1406-1407); he then returned to Madrid,
and lived there in opulence till his own death on the 2nd of April 1412.
He was buried in the chapel of the monastery of St Francis, which he had
rebuilt at great expense.
There are two leading MSS. of Clavijo's narrative--(a) London, British
Museum, Additional MSS., 16,613 fols. I, n.-125, v.; (b) Madrid,
National Library, 9218; and two old editions of the original
Spanish--(1) by Goncalo Argote de Molina (Seville, 1582), (2) by
Antonio de Sancha (Madrid, 1782), both having the misleading titles,
apparently invented by Molina, of _Historia del gran Tamorlan_, and
_Vida y hazanas del gran Tamorlan_ (the latter at the beginning of the
text itself); a better sub-title is added, viz. _Itinerario y
enarracion del viage y relacion de la embaxada que Ruy Gonzalez de
Clavijo le hizo_. Both editors, and especially Sancha, supply general
explanatory dissertations. The Spanish text has also been published,
with a Russian translation, in vol. xxviii. (pp. 1-455) of the
_Publications of the Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences_ (_Section
of Russian Language_, &c.), edited by I.I. Sreznevski (1881). An
English version, by Sir Clements Markham, was issued by the Hakluyt
Society in 1859 (_Narrative of the Embassy of R ... G ... de Clavijo
to the Court of Timour_). The identification of a great number of the
places mentioned by Clavijo is a matter of considerable difficulty,
and has given rise to some discussion (see Khanikof's list in
_Geographical Magazine_ (1874), and Sreznevski's _Annotated Index_ in
the Russian edition of 1881). A short account ot Clavijo's life is
given by Alvarez y Baena in the _Hijos de Madrid_, vol. ix. See also
C.R. Beazley, _Dawn of Modern Geography_, iii. 332-56.
CLAVIJO Y FAJARDO, JOSE (1730-1806), Spanish publicist, was born at
Lanzarote (Canary Islands) in 1730. He settled in Madrid, became editor
of _El Pensador_, and by his campaign against the public performance of
_autos sacramentales_ secured their prohibition in 1765. In 1770 he was
appointed director of the royal theatres, a post which he resigned in
order to take up the editorship of the _Mercurio historico y politico de
Madrid_: at the time of his death in 1806 he was secretary to the
Cabinet of Natural History. He had in abundance the courage,
perseverance and gift of pungent expression which form the equipment of
the aggressive journalist, but his work would long since have been
forgotten were it not that it put an end to a peculiarly national form
of dramatic exposition, and that his love affair with one of
Beaumarchais' sisters suggested the theme of Goethe's first publication,
_Clavigo_.
CLAY, CASSIUS MARCELLUS (1810-1903), American politician, was born in
Madison county, Kentucky, on the 19th of October 1810. He was the son of
Green Clay (1757-1826), a Kentucky soldier of the war of 1812 and a
relative of Henry Clay. He was educated at Centre College, Danville,
Kentucky, and at Yale, where he graduated in 1832. Influenced to some
extent by William Lloyd Garrison, he became an advocate of the abolition
of slavery, and on his return to his native state, at the risk of social
and political ostracism, he gave utterance to his belief. He studied
law, but instead of practising devoted himself to a political career. In
1835, 1837 and 1840 he was elected as a Whig to the Kentucky
legislature, where he advocated a system of gradual emancipation, and
secured the establishment of a public school system, and a much-needed
reform in the jury system. In 1841 he was defeated on account of his
abolition views. In 1844 he delivered campaign speeches for Henry Clay
throughout the North. In 1845 he established, at Lexington, Kentucky, an
anti-slavery publication known as _The True American_, but in the same
year his office and press were wrecked by a mob, and he removed the
publication office to Cincinnati, Ohio. During this and the earlier
period of his career his zeal and hot temper involved him in numerous
personal encounters and several duels, in all of which he bore himself
with a reckless bravery. In the Mexican War he served as a captain of a
Kentucky company of militia, and was taken prisoner, while
reconnoitring, during General Scott's advance on the City of Mexico. He
left the Whig party in 1850, and as an anti-slavery candidate for
governor of Kentucky polled 5000 votes. In 1856 he joined the Republican
party, and wielded considerable influence as a Southern representative
in its councils. In 1860 he was a leading candidate for the
vice-presidential nomination. In 1861 he was sent by President Lincoln
as minister to Russia; in 1862 he returned to America to accept a
commission as major-general of volunteers, but in March 1863 was
reappointed to his former post at St Petersburg, where he remained until
1869. Disapproving of the Republican policy of reconstruction, he left
the party, and in 1872 was one of the organizers of the
Liberal-Republican revolt, and was largely instrumental in securing the
nomination of Horace Greeley for the presidency. In the political
campaigns of 1876 and 1880 he supported the Democratic candidate, but
rejoined the Republican party in the campaign of 1884. He died at
Whitehall, Kentucky, on the 22nd of July 1903.
See his autobiography, _The Life, Memoirs, Writings, and Speeches of
Cassius Marcellus Clay_ (Cincinnati, 1896); and _The Writings of
Cassius Marcellus Clay_ (edited with a "Memoir" by Horace Greeley. New
York, 1848).
CLAY, CHARLES (1801-1893), English surgeon, was born at Bredbury, near
Stockport, on the 27th of December 1801. He began his medical education
as a pupil of Kinder Wood in Manchester (where he used to attend John
Dalton's lectures on chemistry), and in 1821 went to Edinburgh to
continue his studies there. Qualifying in 1823, he began a general
practice in Ashton-under-Lyne, but in 1839 removed to Manchester to
practise as an operative and consulting surgeon. It was there that, in
1842, he first performed the operation of ovariotomy with which his name
is associated. On this occasion it was perfectly successful, and when
in 1865 he published an analysis of 111 cases he was able to show a
mortality only slightly above 30%. Although his merits in this matter
have sometimes been denied, his claim to the title "Father of
Ovariotomy" is now generally conceded, and it is admittted that he
deserves the credit not only of having shown how that operation could be
made a success, but also of having played an important part in the
advance of abdominal surgery for which the 19th century was conspicuous.
In spite of the claims of a heavy practice, Clay found time for the
pursuit of geology and archaeology. Among the books of which he was the
author were a volume of _Geological Sketches of Manchester_ (1839) and a
_History of the Currency of the Isle of Man_ (1849), and his collections
included over a thousand editions of the Old and New Testaments and a
remarkably complete series of the silver and copper coins of the United
States. He died at Poulton-le-Fylde, near Preston, on the 19th of
September 1893.
CLAY, FREDERIC (1838-1889), English musical composer, the son of James
Clay, M.P., who was celebrated as a player of whist and a writer on that
subject, was born in Paris on the 3rd of August 1838. He studied music
under W.B. Molique in Paris and Moritz Hauptmann at Leipzig. With the
exception of a few songs and two cantatas, _The Knights of the Cross_
(1866) and _Lalla Rookh_ (1877),--the latter of which contained his
well-known song "I'll sing thee songs of Araby,"--his compositions were
all written for the stage. Clay's first public appearance was made with
an opera entitled _Court and Cottage_, the libretto of which was written
by Tom Taylor. This was produced at Covent Garden in 1862, and was
followed by _Constance_ (1865), _Ages Ago_ (1869), and _Princess Toto_
(1875), to name only three of many works which have long since been
forgotten. The last two, which were written to libretti by W.S. Gilbert,
are among Clay's most tuneful and most attractive works. He wrote part
of the music for _Babil and Bijou_ (1872) and _The Black Crook_ (1873),
both of which were produced at the Alhambra. He also furnished
incidental music for a revival of _Twelfth Night_ and for the production
of James Albery's _Oriana_. His last works, _The Merry Duchess_ (1883)
and _The Golden Ring_ (1883), the latter written for the reopening of
the Alhambra, which had been burned to the ground the year before,
showed an advance upon his previous work, and rendered all the more
regrettable the stroke of paralysis which crippled his physical and
mental energies during the last few years of his life. He died at Great
Marlow on the 24th of November 1889.
CLAY, HENRY (1777-1852), American statesman and orator, was born in
Hanover county, Virginia, on the 12th of April 1777, and died in
Washington on the 29th of June 1852. Few public characters in the United
States have been the subject of more heated controversy. His enemies
denounced him as a pretender, a selfish intriguer, and an abandoned
profligate; his supporters placed him among the sages and sometimes even
among the saints. He was an arranger of measures and leader of political
forces, not an originator of ideas and systems. His public life covered
nearly half a century, and his name and fame rest entirely upon his own
merits. He achieved his success despite serious obstacles. He was tall,
rawboned and awkward; his early instruction was scant; but he "read
books," talked well, and so, after his admission to the bar at Richmond,
Virginia, in 1797, and his removal next year to Lexington, Kentucky, he
quickly acquired a reputation and a lucrative income from his law
practice.
Thereafter, until the end of life, and in a field where he met, as
either friend or foe, John Quincy Adams, Gallatin, Madison, Monroe,
Webster, Jackson, Calhoun, Randolph and Benton, his political activity
was wellnigh ceaseless. At the age of twenty-two (1799), he was elected
to a constitutional convention in Kentucky; at twenty-six, to the
Kentucky legislature; at twenty-nine, while yet under the age limit of
the United States constitution, he was appointed to an unexpired term
(1806-1807) in the United States Senate, where, contrary to custom, he
at once plunged into business, as though he had been there all his life.
He again served in the Kentucky legislature (1808-1809), was chosen
speaker of its lower house, and achieved distinction by preventing an
intense and widespread anti-British feeling from excluding the common
law from the Kentucky code. A year later he was elected to another
unexpired term in the United States Senate, serving in 1810-1811. At
thirty-four (1811) he was elected to the United States House of
Representatives and chosen speaker on the first day of the session. One
of the chief sources of his popularity was his activity in Congress in
promoting the war with Great Britain in 1812, while as one of the peace
commissioners he reluctantly signed the treaty of Ghent on the 24th of
December 1814. During the fourteen years following his first election,
he was re-elected five times to the House and to the speakership;
retiring for one term (1821-1823) to resume his law practice and
retrieve his fortunes. He thus served as speaker in 1811-1814, in
1815-1820 and in 1823-1825. Once he was unanimously elected by his
constituents, and once nearly defeated for having at the previous
session voted to increase congressional salaries. He was a warm friend
of the Spanish-American revolutionists (1818) and of the Greek
insurgents (1824). From 1825 to 1829 he served as secretary of state in
President John Quincy Adams's cabinet, and in 1831 he was elected to the
United States Senate, where he served until 1842, and again from 1849
until his death.
From the beginning of his career he was in favour of internal
improvements as a means of opening up the fertile but inaccessible West,
and was opposed to the abuse of official patronage known as "the spoils
system." The most important of the national questions with which Clay
was associated, however, were the various phases of slavery politics and
protection to home industries. The most prominent characteristics of his
public life were his predisposition to "compromises" and "pacifications"
which generally failed of their object, and his passionate patriotic
devotion to the Union.
His career as a Protectionist.
His earliest championship of protection was a resolution introduced by
him in the Kentucky legislature (1808) which favoured the wearing by its
members of home-made clothes; and one in the United States Senate (April
1810), on behalf of home-grown and home-made supplies for the United
States navy, but only to the point of making the nation independent of
foreign supply. In 1816 he advocated the Dallas tariff, in which the
duties ranged up to 35% on articles of home production, the supply of
which could satisfy the home demand; the avowed purpose being to build
up certain industries for safety in time of war. In 1824 he advocated
high duties to relieve the prevailing distress, which he pictured in a
brilliant and effective speech. Although the distress was caused by the
reactionary effect of a disordered currency and the inflated prices of
the war of 1812, he ascribed it to the country's dependence on foreign
supply and foreign markets. Great Britain, he said, was a shining
example of the wisdom of a high tariff. No nation ever flourished
without one. He closed his principal speech on the subject in the House
of Representatives with a glowing appeal in behalf of what he called
"The American System." In spite of the opposition of Webster and other
prominent statesmen, Clay succeeded in enacting a tariff which the
people of the Southern states denounced as a "tariff of abominations."
As it overswelled the revenue, in 1832 he vigorously favoured reducing
the tariff rates on all articles not competing with American products.
His speech in behalf of the measure was for years a protection
text-book; but the measure itself reduced the revenue so little and
provoked such serious threats of nullification and secession in South
Carolina, that, to prevent bloodshed and to forestall a free trade
measure from the next Congress, Clay brought forward in 1833 a
compromise gradually reducing the tariff rates to an average of 20%. To
the Protectionists this was "like a crash of thunder in winter"; but it
was received with such favour by the country generally, that its author
was hailed as "The Great Pacificator," as he had been thirteen years
before at the time of the Missouri Compromise (see below). As, however,
the discontent with the tariff in the South was only a symptom of the
real trouble there--the sensitiveness of the slave-power,--Clay
subsequently confessed his serious doubts of the policy of his
interference.
He was only twenty-two, when, as an opponent of slavery, he vainly urged
an emancipation clause for the new constitution of Kentucky, and he
never ceased regretting that its failure put his state, in improvements
and progress, behind its free neighbours. In 1820 he congratulated the
new South American republics on having abolished slavery, but the same
year the threats of the Southern states to destroy the Union led him to
advocate the "Missouri Compromise," which, while keeping slavery out of
all the rest of the territory acquired by the "Louisiana Purchase" north
of Missouri's southern boundary line, permitted it in that state. Then,
greeted with the title of "The Great Pacificator" as a reward for his
success, he retired temporarily to private life, with a larger stock of
popularity than he had ever had before. Although at various times he had
helped to strengthen the law for the recovery of fugitive slaves,
declining as secretary of state to aid Great Britain in the further
suppression of the slave trade, and demanding the return of fugitives
from Canada, yet he heartily supported the colonizing of the slaves in
Africa, because slavery was the "deepest stain upon the character of the
country," opposition to which could not be repressed except by "blowing
out the moral lights around," and "eradicating from the human soul the
light of reason and the law of liberty." When the slave power became
more aggressive, in and after the year 1831, Clay defended the right of
petition for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and
opposed Calhoun's bill forbidding the use of the mails to "abolition"
newspapers and documents. He was luke-warm toward recognizing the
independence of Texas, lest it should aid the increase of slave
territory, and generally favoured the freedom of speech and press as
regards the question of slavery; yet his various concessions and
compromises resulted, as he himself declared, in the abolitionists
denouncing him as a slaveholder, and the slaveholders as an
abolitionist. In 1839, only twelve months after opposing the pro-slavery
demands, he prepared an elaborate speech, in order "to set himself right
with the South," which, before its delivery, received pro-slavery
approval. While affirming that he was "no friend of slavery" he held
abolition and the abolitionists responsible for the hatred, strife,
disruption and carnage that menaced the nation. In response, Calhoun
extended to him a most hearty welcome, and assigned him to a place on
the bench of the penitents. Being a candidate for the presidency Clay
had to take the insult without wincing. It was in reference to this
speech that he made the oft-quoted remark that he "would rather be right
than be president." While a candidate for president in 1844, he opposed
in the "Raleigh letter" the annexation of Texas on many grounds except
that of its increasing the slave power, thus displeasing both the men of
anti-slavery and those of pro-slavery sentiments. In 1847, after the
conquest of Mexico, he made a speech against the annexation of that
country or the acquiring of any foreign territory for the spread of
slavery. Although in 1849 he again vainly proposed emancipation in
Kentucky, he was unanimously elected to the United States Senate, where
in 1850 he temporarily pacified both sections of the country by
successfully offering, for the sake of the "peace, concord and harmony
of these states," a measure or series of measures that became known as
the "Compromise of 1850." It admitted California as a free state,
organized Utah and New Mexico as Territories without reference to
slavery, and enacted a more efficient fugitive slave law. In spite of
great physical weakness he made several earnest speeches in behalf of
these measures to save the Union.
Another conspicuous feature of Clay's public career was his absorbing
and rightful, but constantly ungratified, ambition to be president of
the United States. His name in connexion therewith was mentioned
comparatively early, and in 1824, with W.H. Crawford, Andrew Jackson,
and John Quincy Adams, he was a candidate for that office. There being
no choice by the people, and the House of Representatives having elected
Adams, Clay was accused by Jackson and his friends of making a corrupt
bargain whereby, in payment of his vote and influence for Adams, he was
appointed secretary of state. This made Jackson Clay's lifelong enemy,
and ever after kept Clay busy explaining and denying the allegation. In
1832 Clay was unanimously nominated for the presidency by the National
Republicans; Jackson, by the Democrats. The main issue was the policy of
continuing the United States Bank, which in 1811 Clay had opposed, but
in 1816 and always subsequently warmly favoured. A majority of the
voters approved of Jackson's fight against what Clay had once denounced
as a dangerous and unconstitutional monopoly. Clay made the mistake of
supposing that he could arouse popular enthusiasm for a moneyed
corporation in its contest with the great military "hero of New
Orleans." In 1839 he was a candidate for the Whig nomination, but by a
secret ballot his enemies defeated him in the party convention, held in
December of that year, and nominated William Henry Harrison. The result
threw Clay into paroxysms of rage, and he violently complained that his
friends always used him as their candidate when he was sure to be
defeated, and betrayed him when he or any one could have been elected.
In 1844 he was nominated by the Whigs against James K. Polk, the
Democratic candidate. By an audacious fraud that represented him as an
enemy, and Polk as a friend of protection, Clay lost the vote of
Pennsylvania; and he lost the vote of New York by his own letter abating
the force of his previous opposition to the annexation of Texas. Even
his enemies felt that his defeat by Polk was almost a national calamity.
In 1848, Zachary Taylor, a Mexican War hero, and hardly even a convert
to the Whig party, defeated Clay for the nomination, Kentucky herself
deserting her "favourite son."
Clay's quick intelligence and sympathy, and his irreproachable conduct
in youth, explain his precocious prominence in public affairs. In his
persuasiveness as an orator and his charming personality lay the secret
of his power. He had early trained himself in the art of speech-making,
in the forest, the field and even the barn, with horse and ox for
audience. By contemporaries his voice was declared to be the finest
musical instrument that they ever heard. His eloquence was in turn
majestic, fierce, playful, insinuating; his gesticulation natural,
vivid, large, powerful. In public he was of magnificent bearing,
possessing the true oratorical temperament, the nervous exaltation that
makes the orator feel and appear a superior being, transfusing his
thought, passion and will into the mind and heart of the listener; but
his imagination frequently ran away with his understanding, while his
imperious temper and ardent combativeness hurried him and his party into
disadvantageous positions. The ease, too, with which he outshone men of
vastly greater learning lured him from the task of intense and arduous
study. His speeches were characterized by skill of statement, ingenious
grouping of facts, fervent diction, and ardent patriotism; sometimes by
biting sarcasm, but also by superficial research, half-knowledge and an
unwillingness to reason a proposition to its logical results. In
private, his never-failing courtesy, his agreeable manners and a noble
and generous heart for all who needed protection against the powerful or
the lawless, endeared him to hosts of friends. His popularity was as
great and as inexhaustible among his neighbours as among his
fellow-citizens generally. He pronounced upon himself a just judgment
when he wrote: "If any one desires to know the leading and paramount
object of my public life, the preservation of this Union will furnish
him the key."
See Calvin Colton, _The Works of Henry Clay_ (6 vols., New York, 1857;
new ed., 7 vols., New York, 1898), the first three volumes of which
are an account of Clay's "Life and Times"; Carl Schurz, _Henry Clay_
(2 vols., Boston, 1887), in the "American Statesmen" series; and the
life by T. Hart Clay (1910). (C. S.)
CLAY (from O. Eng. _claeg_, a word common in various forms to Teutonic
languages, cf. Ger. _Klei_), commonly defined as a fine-grained, almost
impalpable substance, very soft, more or less coherent when dry, plastic
and retentive of water when wet; it has an "earthy" odour when breathed
upon or moistened, and consists essentially of hydrous aluminium
silicate with various impurities. Of clay are formed a great number of
rocks, which collectively are known as "clay-rocks" or "pelitic rocks"
(from Gr. [Greek: pelos], clay), e.g. mudstone, shale, slate: these
exhibit in greater or less perfection the properties above described
according to their freedom from impurities. In nature, clays are rarely
free from foreign ingredients, many of which can be detected with the
unaided eye, while others may be observed by means of the microscope.
The commonest impurities are:--(1) organic matter, humus, &c.
(exemplified by clay-soils with an admixture of peat, oil shales,
carbonaceous shales); (2) fossils (such as plants in the shales of the
Lias and Coal Measures, shells in clays of all geological periods and in
fresh water marls); (3) carbonate of lime (rarely altogether absent, but
abundant in marls, cement-stones and argillaceous limestones); (4)
sulphide of iron, as pyrite or marcasite (when finely diffused, giving
the clay a dark grey-blue colour, which weathers to brown--e.g. London
Clay; also as nodules and concretions, e.g. Gault); (5) oxides of iron
(staining the clay bright red when ferric oxide, red ochre; yellow when
hydrous, e.g. yellow ochre); (6) sand or detrital silica (forming loams,
arenaceous clays, argillaceous sandstones, &c.). Less frequently present
are the following:--rock salt (Triassic clays, and marls of Cheshire,
&c.); gypsum (London Clay, Triassic clays); dolomite, phosphate of lime,
vivianite (phosphate of iron), oxides of manganese, copper ores (e.g.
_Kupferschiefer_), wavellite and amber. As the impurities increase in
amount the clay rocks pass gradually into argillaceous sands and
sandstones, argillaceous limestones and dolomites, shaly coals and clay
ironstones.
Natural clays, even when most pure, show a considerable range of
composition, and hence cannot be regarded as consisting of a single
mineral; clay is a _rock_, and has that variability which characterizes
all rocks. Of the essential properties of clay some are merely physical,
and depend on the minute size of the particles. If any rock be taken
(even a piece of pure quartz) and crushed to a very fine powder, it will
show some of the peculiarities of clays; for example, it will be
plastic, retentive of moisture, impermeable to water, and will shrink to
some extent if the moist mass be kneaded, and then allowed to dry. It
happens, however, that many rocks are not disintegrated to this extreme
degree by natural processes, and weathering invariably accompanies
disintegration. Quartz, for example, has little or no cleavage, and is
not attacked by the atmosphere. It breaks up into fragments, which
become rounded by attrition, but after they reach a certain minuteness
are borne along by currents of water or air in a state of suspension,
and are not further reduced in size. Hence sands are more coarse grained
than clays. A great number of rock-forming minerals, however, possess a
good cleavage, so that when bruised they split into thin fragments; many
of these minerals decompose somewhat readily, yielding secondary
minerals, which are comparatively soft and have a scaly character, with
eminently perfect cleavages, which facilitate splitting into exceedingly
thin plates. The principal substances of this description are kaolin,
muscovite and chlorite. Kaolin and muscovite are formed principally
after felspar (and the felspars are the commonest minerals of all
crystalline rocks); also from nepheline, leucite, scapolite and a
variety of other rock-forming minerals. Chlorite arises from biotite,
augite and hornblende. Serpentine, which may be fibrous or scaly, is a
secondary product of olivine and certain pyroxenes. Clays consist
essentially of the above ingredients (although serpentine is not known
to take part in them to any extent, it is closely allied to chlorite).
At the same time other substances are produced as decomposition goes on.
They are principally finely divided quartz, epidote, zoisite, rutile,
limonite, calcite, pyrites, and very small particles of these are rarely
absent from natural clays. These fine-grained materials are at first
mixed with broken and more or less weathered rock fragments and coarser
mineral particles in the soil and subsoil, but by the action of wind and
rain they are swept away and deposited in distant situations. "Loess" is
a fine calcareous clay, which has been wind-borne, and subsequently laid
down on the margins of dry steppes and deserts. Most clays are
water-borne, having been carried from the surface of the land by rain
and transported by the brooks and rivers into lakes or the sea. In this
state the fine particles are known as "mud." They are deposited where
the currents are checked and the water becomes very still. If
temporarily laid down in other situations they are ultimately lifted
again and removed. A little clay, stirred up with water in a glass
vessel, takes hours to settle, and even after two or three days some
remains in suspension; in fact, it has been suggested that in such cases
the clay forms a sort of "colloidal solution" in the water. Traces of
dissolved salts, such as common salt, gypsum or alum, greatly accelerate
deposition. For these reasons the principal gathering places of fine
pure clays are deep, still lakes, and the sea bottom at considerable
distances from the shore. The coarser materials settle nearer the land,
and the shallower portions of the sea floor are strewn with gravel and
sand, except in occasional depressions and near the mouths of rivers
where mud may gather. Farther out the great mud deposits begin,
extending from 50 to 200 m. from the land, according to the amount of
sediment brought in, and the rate at which the water deepens. A girdle
of mud accumulations encircles all the continents. These sediments are
fine and tenacious; their principal components, in addition to clay,
being small grains of quartz, zircon, tourmaline, hornblende, felspar
and iron compounds. Their typical colour is blackish-blue, owing to the
abundance of sulphuretted hydrogen; when fresh they have a sulphurous
odour, when weathered they are brown, as their iron is present as
hydrous oxides (limonite, &c). These deposits are tenanted by numerous
forms of marine life, and the sulphur they contain is derived from
decomposing organic matter. Occasionally water-logged plant debris is
mingled with the mud. In a few places a red colour prevails, the iron
being mostly oxidized; elsewhere the muds are green owing to abundant
glauconite. Traced landwards the muds become more sandy, while on their
outer margins they grade into the abysmal deposits, such as the
globigerina ooze (see OCEAN AND OCEANOGRAPHY). Near volcanoes they
contain many volcanic minerals, and around coral islands they are often
in large part calcareous.
Microscopic sections of some of the more coherent clays and shales may
be prepared by saturating them with Canada balsam by long boiling, and
slicing the resultant mass in the same manner as one of the harder
rocks. They show that clay rocks contain abundant very small grains of
quartz (about 0.01 to 0.05 mm. in diameter), with often felspar,
tourmaline, zircon, epidote, rutile and more or less calcite. These may
form more than one-third of an ordinary shale; the greater part,
however, consists of still smaller scales of other minerals (0.01 mm. in
diameter and less than this). Some of these are recognizable as pale
yellowish and white mica; others seem to be chlorite, the remainder is
perhaps kaolin, but, owing to the minute size of the flakes, they yield
very indistinct reactions to polarized light. They are also often
stained with iron oxide and organic substances, and in consequence their
true nature is almost impossible to determine. It is certain, however,
that the finer-grained rocks are richest in alumina, and in combined
water; hence the inference is clear that kaolin or some other hydrous
aluminium silicate is the dominating constituent. These results are
confirmed by the mechanical analysis of clays. This process consists in
finely pulverizing the soil or rock, and levigating it in vessels of
water. A series of powders is obtained progressively finer according to
the time required to settle to the bottom of the vessel. The clay is
held to include those particles which have less than 0.005 mm. diameter,
and contains a higher percentage of alumina than any of the other
ingredients.
As might be inferred from the differences they exhibit in other
respects, clay rocks vary greatly in their chemical composition. Some of
them contain much iron (yellow, blue and red clays); others contain
abundant calcium carbonate (calcareous clays and marls). Pure clays,
however, may be found almost quite free from these substances. Their
silica ranges from about 60 to 45%, varying in accordance with the
amount of quartz and alkali-felspar present. It is almost always more
than would be the case if the rock consisted of kaolin mixed with
muscovite. Alumina is high in the finer clays (18 to 30%), and they are
the most aluminous of all sediments, except bauxite. Magnesia is never
absent, though its amount may be less than 1%; it is usually contained
in minerals of the chlorite group, but partly also in dolomite. The
alkalis are very interesting; often they form 5 or 10% of the whole
rock; they indicate abundance of white micas or of undecomposed
particles of felspar. Some clays, however, such as fireclays, contain
very little potash or soda, while they are rich in alumina; and it is a
fair inference that hydrated aluminous silicates, such as kaolin, are
well represented in these rocks. There are, in fact, a few clays which
contain about 45% of alumina, that is to say, more than in pure kaolin.
It is probable that these are related to bauxite and certain kinds of
laterite.
A few of the most important clay rocks, such as china-clay, brick-clay,
red-clay and shale, may be briefly described here.
_China-clay_ is white, friable and earthy. It occurs in regions of
granite, porphyry and syenite, and usually occupies funnel-shaped
cavities of no great superficial area, but of considerable depth. It
consists of very fine scaly kaolin, larger, shining plates of white
mica, grains of quartz and particles of semi-decomposed felspar,
tourmaline, zircon and other minerals, which originally formed part of
the granite. These clays are produced by the decomposition of the
granite by acid vapours, which are discharged after the igneous rock has
solidified ("fumarole or pneumatolytic action"). Fluorine and its
compounds are often supposed to have been among the agencies which
produce this change, but more probably carbonic acid played the
principal role. The felspar decomposes into kaolin and quartz; its
alkalis are for the most part set free and removed in solution, but are
partly retained in the white mica which is constantly found in crude
china-clays. Semi-decomposed varieties of the granite are known as
china-stone. The kaolin may be washed away from its original site, and
deposited in hollows or lakes to form beds of white clay, such as
pipe-clay; in this case it is always more or less impure. Yellow and
pinkish varieties of china-clay and pipe-clay contain a small quantity
of oxide of iron. The best known localities for china-clay are Cornwall,
Limoges (France), Saxony, Bohemia and China; it is found also in
Pennsylvania, N. Carolina and elsewhere in the United States.
_Fire-clays_ include all those varieties of clay which are very
refractory to heat. They must contain little alkalis, lime, magnesia and
iron, but some of them are comparatively rich in silica. Many of the
clays which pass under this designation belong to the Carboniferous
period, and are found underlying seams of coal. Either by rapid growth
of vegetation, or by subsequent percolation of organic solutions, most
of the alkalis and the lime have been carried away.
Any argillaceous material, which can be used for the manufacture of
bricks, may be called a _brick-clay_. In England, Kimmeridge Clay, Lias
clays, London Clay and pulverized shale and slate are all employed for
this purpose. Each variety needs special treatment according to its
properties. The true brick-clays, however, are superficial deposits of
Pleistocene or Quaternary age, and occur in hollows, filled-up lakes and
deserted stream channels. Many of them are derived from the glacial
boulder-clays, or from the washing away of the finer materials contained
in older clay formations. They are always very impure.
The _red-clay_ is an abysmal formation, occurring in the sea bottom in
the deepest part of the oceans. It is estimated to cover over fifty
millions of square miles, and is probably the most extensive deposit
which is in course of accumulation at the present day. In addition to
the reddish or brownish argillaceous matrix it contains fresh or
decomposed crystals of volcanic minerals, such as felspar, augite,
hornblende, olivine and pumiceous or palagonitic rocks. These must
either have been ejected by submarine volcanoes or drifted by the wind
from active vents, as the fine ash discharged by Krakatoa was wafted
over the whole globe. Larger rounded lumps of pumice, found in the clay,
have probably floated to their present situations, and sank when
decomposed, all their cavities becoming filled with sea water. Crystals
of zeolites (phillipsite) form in the red-clay as radiate, nodular
groups. Lumps of manganese oxide, with a black, shining outer surface,
are also characteristic of this deposit, and frequently encrust pieces
of pumice or animal remains. The only fossils of the clay are
radiolaria, sharks' teeth and the ear-bones of whales, precisely those
parts of the skeleton of marine creatures which are hardest and can
longest survive exposure to sea-water. Their comparative abundance shows
how slowly the clay gathers. Small rounded spherules of iron, believed
by some to be meteoric dust, have also been obtained in some numbers.
Among the rocks of the continents nothing exactly the same as this
remarkable deposit is known to occur, though fine dark clays, with
manganese nodules, are found in many localities, accompanied by other
rocks which indicate deep-water conditions of deposit.
Another type of red-clay is found in caves, and is known as _cave-earth_
or _red-earth_ (_terra rossa_). It is fine, tenacious and bright red,
and represents the insoluble and thoroughly weathered impurities which
are left behind when the calcareous matter is removed in solution by
carbonated waters. Similar residual clays sometimes occur on the surface
of areas of limestone in hollows and fissures formed by weathering.
_Boulder-clay_ is a coarse unstratified deposit of fine clay, with more
or less sand, and boulders of various sizes, the latter usually marked
with glacial striations.
Some clay rocks which have been laid down by water are very uniform
through their whole thickness, and are called _mud-stones_. Others split
readily into fine leaflets or laminae parallel to their bedding, and
this structure is accentuated by the presence of films of other
materials, such as sand or vegetable debris. Laminated clays of this
sort are generally known as _shales_; they occur in many formations but
are very common in the Carboniferous. Some of them contain much organic
debris, and when distilled yield paraffin oil, wax, compounds of
ammonia, &c. In these oil-shales there are clear, globular, yellow
bodies which seem to be resinous. It has been suggested that the
admixture of large quantities of decomposed fresh-water algae among the
original mud is the origin of the paraffins. In New South Wales,
Scotland and several parts of America such oil-shales are worked on a
commercial scale. Many shales contain great numbers of ovoid or rounded
septarian nodules of clay ironstone. Others are rich in pyrites, which,
on oxidation, produces sulphuric acid; this attacks the aluminous
silicates of the clay and forms aluminium sulphate (_alum shales_). The
lias shales of Whitby contain blocks of semi-mineralized wood, or jet,
which is black with a resinous lustre, and a fibrous structure. The
laminated structure of shales, though partly due to successive very thin
sheets of deposit, is certainly dependent also on the vertical pressure
exerted by masses of super-incumbent rock; it indicates a transition to
the fissile character of clay slates. (J. S. F.)
CLAY CROSS, an urban district in the Chesterfield parliamentary division
of Derbyshire, England, near the river Amber, on the Midland railway, 5
m. S. of Chesterfield. Pop. (1901) 8358. The Clay Cross Colliery and
Ironworks Company, whose mines were for a time leased by George
Stephenson, employ a great number of hands.
CLAYMORE (from the Gaelic _claidheamh mor_, "great sword"), the old
two-edged broadsword with cross hilt, of which the guards were usually
turned down, used by the Highlanders of Scotland. The name is also
wrongly applied to the single-edged basket-hilted sword adopted in the
16th century and still worn as the full-dress sword in the Highland
regiments of the British army.
CLAYS, PAUL JEAN (1819-1900), Belgian artist, was born at Bruges in
1819, and died at Brussels in 1900. He was one of the most esteemed
marine painters of his time, and early in his career he substituted a
sincere study of nature for the extravagant and artificial
conventionality of most of his predecessors. When he began to paint, the
sea was considered by continental artists as worth representing only
under its most tempestuous aspects. Artists cared only for the stirring
drama of storm and wreck, and they clung still to the old-world
tradition of the romantic school. Clays was the first to appreciate the
beauty of calm waters reflecting the slow procession of clouds, the
glories of sunset illuminating the sails of ships or gilding the tarred
sides of heavy fishing-boats. He painted the peaceful life of rivers,
the poetry of wide estuaries, the regulated stir of roadsteads and
ports. And while he thus broke away from old traditions he also threw
off the trammels imposed on him by his master, the marine painter
Theodore Gudin (1802-1880). Endeavouring only to give truthful
expression to the nature that delighted his eyes, he sought to render
the limpid salt atmosphere, the weight of waters, the transparence of
moist horizons, the gem-like sparkle of the sky. A Fleming in his
feeling for colour, he set his palette with clean strong hues, and their
powerful harmonies were in striking contrast with the rusty, smoky tones
then in favour. If he was not a "luminist" in the modern use of the
word, he deserves at any rate to be classed with the founders of the
modern naturalistic school. This conscientious and healthy
interpretation, to which the artist remained faithful, without any
important change, to the end of an unusually long and laborious career,
attracted those minds which aspired to be bold, and won over those which
were moderate. Clays soon took his place among the most famous Belgian
painters of his generation, and his pictures, sold at high prices, are
to be seen in most public and private galleries. We may mention, among
others, "The Beach at Ault," "Boats in a Dutch Port," and "Dutch Boats
in the Flushing Roads," the last in the National Gallery, London. In the
Brussels gallery are "The Port of Antwerp," "Coast near Ostend," and a
"Calm on the Scheldt"; in the Antwerp museum, "The Meuse at Dordrecht";
in the Pinakothek at Munich, "The Open North Sea"; in the Metropolitan
Museum of Fine Arts, New York, "The Festival of the Freedom of the
Scheldt at Antwerp in 1863"; in the palace of the king of the Belgians,
"Arrival of Queen Victoria at Ostend in 1857"; in the Bruges academy,
"Port of Feirugudo, Portugal." Clays was a member of several Academies,
Belgian and foreign, and of the Order of Leopold, the Legion of Honour,
&c.
See Camille Lemonnier, _Histoire des Beaux-Arts_ (Brussels, 1887).
(O. M.*)
CLAYTON, JOHN MIDDLETON (1796-1856), American politician, was born in
Dagsborough, Sussex county, Delaware, on the 24th of July 1796. He came
of an old Quaker family long prominent in the political history of
Delaware. He graduated at Yale in 1815, and in 1819 began to practise
law at Dover, Delaware, where for a time he was associated with his
cousin, Thomas Clayton (1778-1854), subsequently a United States senator
and chief-justice of the state. He soon gained a large practice. He
became a member of the state House of Representatives in 1824, and from
December 1826 to October 1828 was secretary of state of Delaware. In
1829, by a combination of anti-Jackson forces in the state legislature,
he was elected to the United States Senate. Here his great oratorical
gifts gave him a high place as one of the ablest and most eloquent
opponents of the administration. In 1831 he was a member of the Delaware
constitutional convention, and in 1835 he was returned to the Senate as
a Whig, but resigned in the following year. In 1837-1839 he was chief
justice of Delaware. In 1845 he again entered the Senate, where he
opposed the annexation of Texas and the Mexican War, but advocated the
active prosecution of the latter once it was begun. In March 1849 he
became secretary of state in the cabinet of President Zachary Taylor, to
whose nomination and election his influence had contributed. His brief
tenure of the state portfolio, which terminated on the 22nd of July
1850, soon after Taylor's death, was notable chiefly for the negotiation
with the British minister, Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer, of the
Clayton-Bulwer Treaty (q.v.). He was once more a member of the Senate
from March 1853 until his death at Dover, Delaware, on the 9th of
November 1856. By his contemporaries Clayton was considered one of the
ablest debaters and orators in the Senate.
See the memoir by Joseph P. Comegys in the _Papers_ of the Historical
Society of Delaware, No. 4 (Wilmington, 1882).
CLAYTON-BULWER TREATY, a famous treaty between the United States and
Great Britain, negotiated in 1850 by John M. Clayton and Sir Henry
Lytton Bulwer (Lord Dalling), in consequence of the situation created by
the project of an interoceanic canal across Nicaragua, each signatory
being jealous of the activities of the other in Central America. Great
Britain had large and indefinite territorial claims in three
regions--Belize or British Honduras, the Mosquito Coast and the Bay
Islands.[1] On the other hand, the United States, without territorial
claims, held in reserve, ready for ratification, treaties with Nicaragua
and Honduras, which gave her a certain diplomatic vantage with which to
balance the _de facto_ dominion of Great Britain. Agreement on these
points being impossible and agreement on the canal question possible,
the latter was put in the foreground. The resulting treaty had four
essential points. It bound both parties not to "obtain or maintain" any
exclusive control of the proposed canal, or unequal advantage in its
use. It guaranteed the neutralization of such canal. It declared that,
the intention of the signatories being not only the accomplishment of "a
particular object"--i.e. that the canal, then supposedly near
realization, should be neutral and equally free to the two contracting
powers--"but also to establish a general principle," they agreed "to
extend their protection by treaty stipulation to any other practicable
communications, whether by canal or railway, across the isthmus which
connects North and South America." Finally, it stipulated that neither
signatory would ever "occupy, or fortify, or colonize, or assume or
exercise any dominion over Nicaragua, Costa Rica, the Mosquito Coast or
any part of Central America," nor make use of any protectorate or
alliance, present or future, to such ends.
The treaty was signed on the 19th of April, and was ratified by both
governments; but before the exchange of ratifications Lord Palmerston,
on the 8th of June, directed Sir H. Bulwer to make a "declaration" that
the British government did not understand the treaty "as applying to Her
Majesty's settlement at Honduras, or its dependencies." Mr Clayton made
a counter-declaration, which recited that the United States did not
regard the treaty as applying to "the British settlement in Honduras
commonly called British-Honduras ... nor the small islands in the
neighbourhood of that settlement which may be known as its
dependencies"; that the treaty's engagements did apply to all the
Central American states, "with their just limits and proper
dependencies"; and that these declarations, not being submitted to the
United States Senate, could of course not affect the legal import of the
treaty. The interpretation of the declarations soon became a matter of
contention. The phraseology reflects the effort made by the United
States to render impossible a physical control of the canal by Great
Britain through the territory held by her at its mouth--the United
States losing the above-mentioned treaty advantages,--just as the
explicit abnegations of the treaty rendered impossible such control
politically by either power. But great Britain claimed that the excepted
"settlement" at Honduras was the "Belize" covered by the extreme British
claim; that the Bay Islands were a dependency of Belize; and that, as
for the Mosquito Coast, the abnegatory clauses being wholly prospective
in intent, she was not required to abandon her protectorate. The United
States contended that the Bay Islands were not the "dependencies" of
Belize, these being the small neighbouring islands mentioned in the same
treaties; that the excepted "settlement" was the British-Honduras of
definite extent and narrow purpose recognized in British treaties with
Spain; that she had not confirmed by recognition the large, indefinite
and offensive claims whose dangers the treaty was primarily designed to
lessen; and that, as to the Mosquito Coast, the treaty was
retrospective, and mutual in the rigour of its requirements, and as the
United States had no _de facto_ possessions, while Great Britain had,
the clause binding both not to "occupy" any part of Central America or
the Mosquito Coast necessitated the abandonment of such territory as
Great Britain was already actually occupying or exercising dominion
over; and the United States demanded the complete abandonment of the
British protectorate over the Mosquito Indians. It seems to be a just
conclusion that when in 1852 the Bay Islands were erected into a British
"colony" this was a flagrant infraction of the treaty; that as regards
Belize the American arguments were decidedly stronger, and more correct
historically; and that as regards the Mosquito question, inasmuch as a
protectorate seems certainly to have been recognized by the treaty, to
demand its absolute abandonment was unwarranted, although to satisfy the
treaty Great Britain was bound materially to weaken it.
In 1859-1860, by British treaties with Central American states, the Bay
Islands and Mosquito questions were settled nearly in accord with the
American contentions.[2] But by the same treaties Belize was accorded
limits much greater than those contended for by the United States. This
settlement the latter power accepted without cavil for many years.
Until 1866 the policy of the United States was consistently for
inter-oceanic canals open equally to all nations, and unequivocally
neutralized; indeed, until 1880 there was practically no official
divergence from this policy. But in 1880-1884 a variety of reasons were
advanced why the United States might justly repudiate at will the
Clayton-Bulwer Treaty.[3] The new policy was based on national
self-interest. The arguments advanced on its behalf were quite
indefensible in law and history, and although the position of the United
States in 1850-1860 was in general the stronger in history, law and
political ethics, that of Great Britain was even more conspicuously the
stronger in the years 1880-1884. In 1885 the former government reverted
to its traditional policy, and the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty of 1902, which
replaced the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, adopted the rule of neutralization
for the Panama Canal.
See the collected diplomatic correspondence in I.D. Travis, _History
of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty_ (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1899); J.H. Latane,
_Diplomatic Relations of the United States and Spanish America_
(Baltimore, 1900); T.J. Lawrence, _Disputed Questions of Modern
International Law_ (2nd ed., Cambridge, England, 1885); Sir E.L.
Bulwer in 99 _Quarterly Rev._ 235-286, and Sir H. Bulwer in 104
_Edinburgh Rev._ 280-298.