CHORD

Grecian Architecture, a monument erected fn honour of the Choragus who gained the prize by the exhibition of the best musical or theatrical entertainment at the festivals of Bacchus. The Choragi were the heads of the ten tribes at Athens, who overlooked and arranged the games at their own expense. The prize was usually a tripod, which the victor was bound publicly to exhibit, for which purpose a building or column was usually erected. The remains of two very line monuments of this sort, viz. those of Lysicrates and Thrasyllus, are still to be seen at Athens. CHORD. (Gr. x'>?^v> , I describe.) The description of a district, in contradistinction to geography (the description of the earth or of countries) and topography (the description of particular spots) CHO'ROID MEMBRANE OF THE EYE. The second tunic of the eye lying under the sclerotic, with which it has a vascular connection: it commences at the optic nerve, and pa es forward with the sclerotic to the beginning of the transparent cornea, where it firmly adheres to the sclerotic by a cellular membrane, forming a white fringe called the ciliary circle; it then recedes from the sclerotic and cornea, forming a round coloured disc called the iris, and its posterior surlace is termed uvea. The choroid membrane is very vascular, and its external stellated ve els are called vasa verticosa. Its internal surface is covered by a black piginent. CHO'ROID PLE'XUS. A plexus of blood-ve els situated in the lateral ventricles of the brain. CHO'RUS. Gr.;t«f»»-) A band of singers and dancers who performed odes in honour of the gods, particularly Bacchus. The chorus formed an Important part of the Greek tragedies and early comedies, which were interspersed with odes. There were likewige several other choruses besides these, as the Dithyrambic; and the exhibition of these was one of the public burthens imposed on the richest private citizens of Athens. It was called the choregi a,(x«5-';j'/«). See Drama, and Choragic Monument. I 228 I CHRISTIANITY. Chorus., In Music, the joint performance of music by the whole of the members of the orchestra. CHOU'ANS. In French History, the royalist insurgents on the right bank of the Loire during the revolution when the Vendeans rose on the left, were thus popularly named; according to some, from the cry of the screech-owl {chat-huant), an imitation of which was a signal during their nightly meetings. They were for the most part brigands, and their object rapine rather than civil war. After the revolution of 1830, they made a transient reappearance in the neighbourhood of Nantes and Le Mans. CHREMATI'STICS. {^Gr. x^r./jM^a., wealth.) The science of wealth; a name given by Continental writers to the science of political economy, or rather to what in their view constitutes a portion of the science. They consider ^political economy as a term more properly applicable to the whole range of subjects which comprise the material welfare of states and citizens, and chrematistics (by which they mean nearly the same science which M'CuUoch and most other English writers describe as political economy) as merely a branch of it. See especially M. de Sismondi, Etudes sur VEconomie Politique, See also Chrysology. CHRESTO'MATHY. (Gr. xi^'^'^os, useful, and a*«i.Satva, I learn.) According to the etymology, that which it is useful to learn. The Greeks frequently formed commonplace books by collecting the various pa ages to which, in the course of reading, they had aflSxed the mark x (;t?'; ""'■*?)• Hence books of extracts chosen with a view to utility have received this name. CHRISM. (Gr. xi' Page 242