earth house, eirdhouse, erdhouse, eorthhus

1. Lit .: A subterranean dwelling known in Scotland as" Picts' houses" or "Picts' dwellings." The description as given below corresponds with that given by Tacitus of the buildings of the ancient Germans. "At the same place, and also in another part of the parish, are what the country people call eird-houses. These are below ground, and some of them said to extend a great way. The sides of these subterraneous mansions are faced up with dry stones to the height of about five feet; they are between three and four feet wide, and covered above with large stones laid acro . They may have been either receptacles for plunder or places of shelter from the inclemency of the weather, before houses were built, or of concealment from an enemy."-P. Strath don: Aberd. Statist. Acc., xiii. 182, N. IMG:content-0711.png:[blocks in formation] reflected from the earth makes the circle faintly complete. As the moon gains age it offers a le portion of the bright side, and the phenomenon dies away to reappear again when the luminary has considerably waned. It is called also Earth-shine (q. v.). (Herschel: Astronomy, § 417, .) earth-metals, s . pl . [EARTH, 8. II., 5 (2).] Reactions of the earth- metals : They are precipitated from solutions of their salts by ammonium sulphide, as hydrates and not as sulphides. The hydrates of aluminium and beryllium are soluble in caustic soda; the other earth-metals-zirconium, thorium, cerium, lanthanum, didymium, erbium, and yttrium-are insoluble; zirconium and thorium are precipitated as thiosulphates, by boiling the solution with sodium thiosulphate, the other metals remaining in solution. IMG:content-0712.png:[blocks in formation] Bot.: Lathyrus a mph i car pos. (Loudon.) earth-pillars, earth-pyramids, s. pl. Geog. & Geol.: Pillars or pyramids of earth in Switzerland, ., from twenty to one hundred feet high, occurring in the Canton of Valais, near Botzen, in the Tyrol, . Sometimes they are capped by a single stone. They have been separated by rain from the terrace, of which they once formed a part. ( Lyell : Prin. Geol. (11th ed.), ch. xv.)