the “Warp,” a marine and estuarine silt and clay of the Humber; and also beds of peat and diatomite.
See Glacial Period; Pleistocene; Boulder Clay. (J. A. H.)
DRILL. (1) A tool for boring or making holes in hard substances, such as stone, metal, &c. (an adaptation in the 17th century from the Dutch dril or drille, from drillen, to turn, bore a hole; according to the New English Dictionary the word is not to be connected with the English “thrill”). The word drillen was used in Dutch, German and Danish, from the 17th century for training in military exercises and was adopted into English in the same sense. The origin of the application seems to be in the primary sense of “to turn round,” from the turning of the troops in their evolutions and from the turning of the weapons in the soldiers’ hands. Drill is, formally, the preparation of soldiers for their duties in war by the practice or rehearsal of movements in military order and the handling of arms, and, psychologically, the method of producing in the individual soldier habits of self-control and of mechanically precise actions under disturbing conditions, and of rendering the common instinctive will of a body of men, large or small, amenable to the control of, and susceptible to a stimulus imparted by its commander’s will.
(2) A furrow made in the soil in which seed may be sown, and a machine used for sowing seed in such furrows (see Sowing). The word is somewhat doubtful in origin. It may be the same as an obsolete word “drill,” to trickle, flow in drops, also a small stream or flow of water, a rill, and is possibly an altered form of “trill.”
(3) In zoology, the native name of a large short-tailed west African baboon, Papio leucophaeus, closely allied to the mandrill (q.v.), but distinguished by the absence of brilliant blue and scarlet on the jaws of the fully adult males.
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(4) The name of a fabric made in both linen and cotton, and commonly bleached and finished stiff. The word is a shortened form of “drilling,” from the German drillich, or “three-threaded,” and is so named because the weave originally used in its construction is what is termed the three-leaf twill, nine repeats of which appear in the accompanying figure, while immediately below the design is an intersection of all the nine threads with the first pick. It is essentially a warp-faced fabric; that is, the upper surface is composed mostly of warp threads. In the figure it will be seen that two out of every three threads appear on the surface, and, by introducing a greater number of threads per inch than picks per inch, the weft is made to occupy a still more subordinate position so far as the upper surface of the cloth is concerned. Although the weave shown is still extensively used in this branch, there are others, e.g. the 4-thread and the 5-thread weaves, which are employed for the production of this cloth. Large quantities of drill are shipped to the Eastern markets and to other sub-tropical centres, from which it is sold for clothing. In temperate climates it forms a satisfactory material for ladies’ and children’s summer clothing, and it is used by chefs, hairdressers, provision merchants, grocers, buttermen, painters and decorators, &c., while many of the long jackets or overalls, such as those worn by many mill and factory managers, are made from the same material.
DRINKING VESSELS. [1] The use of special vessels for drinking purposes may fairly be assumed to have had a natural origin and development. From a practical point of view it would soon be found desirable to provide vessels for liquids in addition to those serving to hold food. As in many other commonplace details of modern life, we must turn to the primitive races to understand how our present conditions were reached. In almost all parts of the world many of the products of nature are capable of serving such purposes, with little or no change at the hands of man; in tropical and sub-tropical climates the coco-nut and the gourd or calabash require but little change to adapt them as the most convenient of drinking utensils; the eggs of the larger birds, such as the ostrich or the emu, shells, like the nautilus and other univalves, as well as the deeper bivalves, are equally convenient. Such natural objects are in fact used by the uncivilized tribes of Africa, America and Polynesia, as well as, in some cases, by the white races who have intruded into those parts of the world, and adopted some of the native habits. In Paraguay, for example, the so-called “Paraguay tea,” an infusion of the yerba maté (Ilex paraguayensis), is drunk through a tube from a small gourd held in the hand, and often handsomely mounted in silver or even gold. In the same way, as we shall see, civilized man has adopted nearly all the natural forms that were found convenient by the savage, altering and adorning them in accordance with the taste of the time or country where they were used.
Another line of development, however, has been found to be the natural outcome of the human mind. Nothing could form a more practical drinking cup than the half of a coco-nut shell or part of a gourd. Such cups, however, in the countries where the plants producing them are common, would be easily obtained, and every one, rich or poor, could possess one or more. In order, therefore, to distinguish the chief’s possessions from those of his inferiors, his cup is often made with great labour, from some more intractable material, wood or stone, though in practically the same form as that of the natural object.
Among European races in medieval times the same lines have been followed, though for different reasons. Human ingenuity, though perhaps originally inspired by natural forms, is apt to turn aside into more artificial channels. The invention of the potter’s art (see Ceramics), where the Early drinking cups.plastic nature of the raw material renders it capable of infinite changes of form, gave rise to types of vessels having no obvious or necessary relation to the productions of nature. In Britain and in northern Europe generally, the interments of the races of the Neolithic and Bronze Ages have furnished vessels of pottery of a beaker-like form, to which the name of “drinking-cups” has been given. It must be confessed that the evidence for attributing such a use to them is slender, and mainly consists of the fact that their thin lips would render them better adapted for the purpose than the other pottery vessels found with them, some of which, on equally slight grounds, have been called food vessels. The general use and acceptance of the term by two generations of archaeologists is, however, an adequate reason for a passing mention in this place. In the later prehistoric times of Europe vessels of gold, bronze and other materials, including amber, were made, sometimes of elegant forms, and would seem to have been used as drinking vessels; still, this is again an assumption, though a fairly probable one. A small gold cup with handle was found in a barrow at Rillaton, Cornwall; one of amber of a similar form was found at Hove, and a third of shale near Honiton. All of these doubtless may be referred to the Bronze Age.
Schliemann found many drinking vessels in his exploration of the superimposed cities of Troy. A pretty form is that found in the first city. It is of clay, and closely resembles an early Victorian tea cup on a high foot. This form is of interest, as Schliemann discovered the same both at Tiryns and New forms found by Schliemann.Mycenae, five from the latter site being of gold, while the type also occurs from Ialysus in Rhodes in association with bronze swords. This Trojan cup was found at a depth of 50 ft. below the present surface and about 18 ft. below the stratum of what Schliemann claimed to be the Homeric Troy. In his second city appears a different type of ware, somewhat fantastic in form, one vessel being in the form of a sow, while others foreshadow the crater and amphora of later and more familiar Greek wares.
But the drinking vessel to which Schliemann draws most attention is the tall cup of a trumpet form furnished with two earlike loop handles. This curious and original type occurs also in the Third (or Homeric), Fourth and Sixth Cities, with little if any change. Schliemann devotes some pages to the discussion of the form, in which he sees the δέπας ἀμφικύπελλον[2] of Homer, which has been more usually understood to mean an hour-glass shaped cup, in which the distinguishing feature
