The width of the alley is 4112 in., and its whole length about 80 ft. From the head, or apex, pin to the foul-line, over which the player may not step in delivering the ball, the distance is 60 ft. On each side of the alley is a 9-in. “gutter” to catch any balls that are bowled wide. Originally nine pins, set up in the diamond form, were used, but during the first part of the 19th century the game of “nine-pins” was prohibited by law, on account of the excessive betting connected with it. This ordinance, however, was soon evaded by the addition of a tenth pin, resulting in the game of “ten-pins,” the pastime in vogue to-day. The ten pins are set up at the end of the alley in the form of a right-angled triangle in four rows, four pins at the back, then three, then two and one as head pin. The back row is placed 3 in. from the alley’s edge, back of which is the pin-pit, 10 in. deep and about 3 ft. wide. The back wall is heavily padded (often with a heavy, swinging cushion), and there are safety corners for the pin-boys, who set up the pins, call the scores and place the balls in the sloping “railway” which returns them to the players’ end of the alley. The pins are made of hard maple and are 15 in. high, 214 in. in diameter at their base and 15 in. in circumference at the thickest point. The balls, which are made of some very hard wood, usually lignum vitae, may be of any size not exceeding 27 in. in circumference and 1612 ℔ in weight. They are provided with holes for the thumb and middle finger. As many may play on a side as please, five being the number for championship teams, though this sometimes varies. Each player rolls three balls, called a frame, and ten frames constitute a game, unless otherwise agreed upon. In first-class matches two balls only are rolled. If all ten pins are knocked down by the first ball the player makes a strike, which counts him 10 plus whatever he may make with the first two balls of his next frame. If, however, he should then make another strike, 10 more are added to his score, making 20, to which are added the pins he may knock down with his first ball of the third frame. This may also score a strike, making 30 as the score of the first frame, and, should the player keep up this high average, he will score the maximum, 300, in his ten frames. If all the pins are knocked down with two balls it is called a spare, and the player may add the pins made by the first ball of his second frame. This seemingly complicated mode of scoring is comparatively simple when properly lined score-boards are used. Of course, if all three balls are used no strike or spare is scored, but the number of pins overturned is recorded. The tens of thousands of bowling clubs in the United States and Canada are under the jurisdiction of the American Bowling Congress, which meets once a year to revise the rules and hold contests for the national championships.
Several minor varieties of bowling are popular in America, the most in vogue being “Cocked Hat,” which is played with three pins, one in the head-pin position and the others on either corner of the back row. The pins are usually a little larger than those used in the regular game, and smaller balls are used. The maximum score is 90, and all balls, even those going into the gutter, are in play. “Cocked hat and Feather” is similar, except that a fourth pin is added, placed in the centre. Other variations of bowling are “Quintet,” in which five pins, set up like an arrow pointed towards the bowler, are used; the “Battle Game,” in which 12 can be scored by knocking down all but the centre, or king, pin; “Head Pin and Four Back,” in which five pins are used, one in the head-pin position and the rest on the back line; “Four Back”; “Five Back”; “Duck Pin”; “Head Pin,” with nine pins set up in the old-fashioned way, and “Candle Pin,” in which thin pins tapering towards the top and bottom are used, the other rules being similar to those of the regular game.
The American bowling game is played to a slight extent in Great Britain and Germany. In the latter country, however, the old-fashioned game of nine-pins (Kegelspiel) with solid balls and the pins set up diamond-fashion, obtains universally. The alleys are made with less care than the American, being of cement, asphalt, slate or marble.
BOWLING GREEN, a city and the county-seat of Warren
county, Kentucky, U.S.A., on the Barren river, 113 m. S. by
W. of Louisville. Pop. (1890) 7803; (1900) 8226, of whom
2593 were negroes; (1910) 9173. The city is served by the
Louisville & Nashville railway (which maintains car shops
here), and by steamboats navigating the river. Macadamized
or gravel roads also radiate from it to all parts of the
surrounding country, a rich agricultural and live-stock raising
region, in which there are deposits of coal, iron ore, oil, natural
gas, asphalt and building stone. The city is the seat of Potter
College (for girls; non-sectarian, opened 1889); of Ogden
College (non-sectarian, 1877), a secondary school, endowed by
the bequest of Major Robert W. Ogden (1796–1873); of the
West Kentucky State Normal School, opened (as the Southern
Normal School and Business College) at Glasgow in 1875 and
removed to Bowling Green in 1884; and of the Bowling Green
Business University, formerly a part of the Southern Normal
School and Business College. Bowling Green has two parks,
a large horse and mule market, and a trade in other live-stock,
tobacco and lumber; among its manufactures are flour, lumber,
tobacco and furniture. The municipality owns and operates
the water-works and the electric lighting plant. Bowling Green
was incorporated in 1812. During the early part of the Civil War
Bowling Green was on the right flank of the first line of Confederate
defence in the West, and was for some time the headquarters
of General Albert Sidney Johnston. It was abandoned,
however, after the capture by the Federals of Forts Henry
and Donelson.
BOWLING GREEN, a city and the county-seat of Wood
county, Ohio, U.S.A., 20 m. S. by W. of Toledo, of which it is a
residential suburb. Pop. (1890) 3467; (1900) 5067 (264 foreign-born);
(1910) 5222. Bowling Green is served by the Cincinnati,
Hamilton & Dayton and the Toledo & Ohio Central railways, and
by the Toledo Urban & Interurban and the Lake Erie, Bowling
Green & Napoleon electric lines, the former extending from
Toledo to Dayton. It is situated in a rich agricultural region
which abounds in oil and natural gas. Many of the residences
and business places of Bowling Green are heated by a privately
owned central hot-water heating plant. Among the manufactures
are cut glass, stoves and ranges, kitchen furniture, guns,
thread-cutting machines, brooms and agricultural implements.
Bowling Green was first settled in 1832, was incorporated as a
town in 1855, and became a city in 1904.
BOWLS, the oldest British outdoor pastime, next to archery, still in vogue. It has been traced certainly to the 13th, and conjecturally to the 12th century. William Fitzstephen (d. about 1190), in his biography of Thomas Becket, gives a graphic sketch of the London of his day and, writing History.of the summer amusements of the young men, says that on holidays they were “exercised in Leaping, Shooting. Wrestling, Casting of Stones [in jactu lapidum], and Throwing of Javelins fitted with Loops for the Purpose, which they strive to fling before the Mark; they also use Bucklers, like fighting Men.” It is commonly supposed that by jactus lapidum Fitzstephen meant the game of bowls, but though it is possible that round stones may sometimes have been employed in an early variety of the game-and there is a record of iron bowls being used, though at a much later date, on festive occasions at Nairn,—nevertheless the inference seems unwarranted. The jactus lapidum of which he speaks was probably more akin to the modern “putting the weight,” once even called “putting the stone.” It is beyond dispute, however, that the game, at any rate in a rudimentary form, was played in the 13th century. A MS. of that period in the royal library, Windsor (No. 20, E iv.), contains a drawing representing two players aiming at a small cone instead of an earthenware ball or jack. Another MS. of the same century has a picture—crude, but spirited—which brings us into close touch with the existing game. Three figures are introduced and a jack. The first player’s bowl has come to rest just in front of the jack; the second has delivered his bowl and is following after it with one of those eccentric contortions still not unusual on modern greens, the first player meanwhile making a repressive gesture with his hand, as if to urge the bowl to stop short of his own; the third player is depicted as in the act of delivering his bowl. A 14th-century MS. Book of Prayers in the Francis Douce collection in the Bodleian library at Oxford contains a drawing in which two persons are shown, but they bowl to no mark. Strutt (Sports
