REED, the name of gramineous plants of the genera phragmites and arundo. The common reed (phragmites communis, Trinius) is a fine showy grass growing in overflowed grounds, and not uncommon on the edge of deep muddybottomed ponds in eastern New England. It has an annual stem (culm), attaining a height of 8 to 12 feet, and very erect and smooth; its leaves are 1 to 2 feet long, broad, flat, and pointed, so that a group of plants at a little distance resembles a field of maize. The genus phragmites was distinguished from the Linnæan arundo on account of its flowers, the lower floret of the spikelet being barren and the flower stalk (rachis) being fringed with silky hairs. The roots of the common reed are perennial, and extend laterally, forming entangled and thick masses. On the banks of the Thames in England, the plant is encouraged to cover embankments, as the running roots strengthen the river walls, and prevent their wasting away by the action of the stream. The culms make the very best thatch for covering roofs of buildings or in the construction of screens and mats used in protecting hot-beds in kitchen gardens, and even in forming a substratum in plaster floors. The flower spikes will dye wool green, and the roots are reputed to be diuretic and diaphoretic. The reed is common to both hemispheres, and is widely distributed.-The cultivated reed (arundo donax, Willd.) is common in the south of France and Italy, where it is artificially raised for use as fence wood, for supporting the vine, for fishing rods, and for many other purposes; a variety with variegated leaves was once considered an ornamental plant in gardens. The arundo tecta and gigantea of Walter are southern plants, now known as belonging to the genus arundinaria of Michaux; the latter is called the cane, with arborescent culms 10 to 20 feet high, rigid and simple the first year, then branching, and, after fruiting at indefinite periods, decaying; it is found on the banks of the larger rivers from North Carolina to Florida. The former is the southern reed, with culms 2 to 10 feet high; linear lanceolate leaves, acuminate, roughish; spikelets solitary or in a simple raceme at the summit of the branches, or frequently on leafVOL. XIV.-1

less radical culms. It flowers in February and March, and grows in swamps from North Carolina to Florida. The sea reed (ammophila arundinacea, Roth.) is common to Europe and the United States, and is found useful in resisting the shifting of sand upon sea beaches.-Other grasses have the trivial name of reed, such as the reed bent grass (calamagrostis), of which several species are common to this country.

REED, HENRY, an American author, born in Philadelphia, July 11, 1808, died Sept. 27, 1854. He was graduated at the university of Pennsylvania in 1825, and began the study of law in the office of John Sargent in Philadelphia. In 1829 he was admitted to the bar; in 1831 was elected assistant professor of English literature in his university, and shortly after assistant professor of moral philosophy; and in 1835 was elected professor of rhetoric and English literature in the same institution. In the spring of 1854 he visited Europe, and upon his return voyage was lost in the steamer Arctic. He wrote the life of his grandfather, Joseph Reed, in Sparks's "American Biography;" "Lectures on English Literature from Chaucer to Tennyson" (1855); "Lectures on English History, Shakespeare," &c. (1856); and "Lectures on the British Poets" (1857). He long maintained a correspondence with Wordsworth, and after his death he edited the American reprint of his memoirs. He also edited Reid's "Dictionary of the English Language," Graham's "English Synonymes," Arnold's "Lectures on Modern History," Lord Mahon's "History of England," and the "Poetical Works of Thomas Gray," with a new memoir.

REED, JOSEPH, an American officer, born in Trenton, N. J., Aug. 27, 1741, died in Philadelphia, March 5, 1785. He was graduated at Princeton college, and commenced the study of law at that place in his 16th year. In he went to England, where he continued 1 studies until the troubles produced by tl. stamp act began, when he returned to Trenton, entered upon the practice of his profession, and in 1767 was appointed deputy secretary of New Jersey. Revisiting England in 1770, he married a daughter of Mr. Dennis De Berdt, agent for the province of Massachusetts Bay, and on

his return settled at Philadelphia, took an active part on the side of independence in the political struggles of the time, and through his English connections opened a lengthened correspondence on the subject with Lord Dartmouth, secretary for the colonies. In 1774 he was appointed a member of the general committee of Philadelphia, and in Jan. 1775, president of the first provincial convention held in Pennsylvania; and he was a delegate to the continental congress which met in May. On the formation of the army he was appointed aidede-camp and secretary to Gen. Washington. In 1776 he was made adjutant-general, and his local knowledge was of great value in the attack at Trenton, and also at Princeton. Early in 1777 he resigned the office of adjutantgeneral, and was appointed chief justice of Pennsylvania, and named by congress a brigadier-general. He declined both offices, and continued to serve in the army as a volunteer, without rank or pay. He was present at nearly every engagement in the northern and eastern portions of the Union, in some of which he had horses killed under him, but never received a wound. In 1778 he was elected to congress, and signed the articles of confederation. About this time he was approached by one of 3 British commissioners, Gov. Johnstone, with an offer of £10,000 and the most valuable office in the colonies if he would exert himself to promote a reconciliation between Great Britain and the colonies. His answer was: "I am not worth purchasing; but, such as I am, the king of Great Britain is not rich enough to buy me.' In the same year he was made president of the supreme executive council of Pennsylvania. While in this position he exerted himself very successfully to suppress an armed insurrection that occurred in Philadelphia; the revolt of the Pennsylvania line was also suppressed mainly by him. His "Life and Correspondence" was published by his grandson, W. B. Reed (2d ed., Philadelphia, 1847).

REED BIRD. See BOBOLINK.

REED INSTRUMENTS, among musical contrivances, a numerous and diverse class, including all those the tones of which are due to vibrations imparted to a body of air in a tube, throat, or chamber, by means of the pulsations of a thin lamina or tongue of wood or metal having one end fixed and the other lying over or within an aperture, and actuated by forcibly directing through this a current of air. Technically, such a lamina is termed a reed. It has two general forms. In the first, seen in the clarinet, the reed is larger than the opening through which the air is to pass, and in pulsating alternately closes and opens it, beating against its margins. This form, among European nations doubtless the earliest known, is distinguished as the beating reed. In the second, seen in the accordion, the dimensions of the reeds are slightly less than those of the aperture, so that, in pulsating in consequence of an impulse and of its own elasticity, it moves

within the current of air only, alternately allowing and interrupting its passage; this is hence termed the free reed. It is proposed to consider in this place only those instruments involving the free reed.-A small, short, metallic tube, containing a single tongue or reed of this form, fitted to yield upon blowing into one end the note A or C, has long been known, and probably first in Germany and Holland, and is termed a pitch pipe. Père Amiot, a French missionary to China, early described the cheng, or Chinese organ, a small instrument consisting of a series of tubes, each having its free lamina or tongue, and acted on by the breath of the performer; and this appears to have been in common use in that country from a period so early that its origin is lost. Whether M. Grenié, who in 1810 introduced free reeds into the construction of the organ (see ORGAN), actually reinvented this form of reed, as believed by Biot and others, or whether he adapted it from the pitch pipe, or directly from a knowledge of the Chinese instrument, it may not now be practicable to determine; but in any event, it appears certain that in point of antiquity, and probably of direct origin, the credit of this invention must be awarded to oriental ingenuity. Knight states that the accordion was brought from Germany into England about 1828; but it is quite certain that as early as 1825 instruments upon this principle were known in the United States, stated by some to have been devised by Mr. J. H. Bazin, of Canton, Mass., upon having brought to him (in 1821) a pitch pipe for repairs. This claim must at present be considered doubtful. French accounts refer the accordion to a period previous to 1829. Wherever the free reed may have been first applied to the making of a small or hand instrument, the modifications thence arising, especially between about 1825 and 1835, were in rapid succession and numerous. Among the earliest of these were Wheatstone's molina and concertina, the latter in form of a bellows with two hexagonal faces, on the upper of which were 4 rows of finger stops or studs; by pressing down the latter, air was admitted to act on the corresponding tongues within. The attempts to improve the accordion, by enlarging it and extending its scale, naturally rendered it unwieldy, and thus led to a form of organ with free reeds only, and without pipes, the bellows being worked by the foot. Such was Mr. Green's seraphine, and the French mélodium (in England and the United States, melodeon), one form of which latter, also termed the harmonium, appears to have been the invention of M. Debain of Paris, and improved by MM. Alexandre, father and son, being still (1861) manufactured by the house established by the elder Alexandre for the making of accordions in 1829. The most improved form of this instrument is in France now known as the orgue-mélodium, or piano Liszt; in this country, as the Alexandre organ. Other French instruments, of the earlier date

above spoken of, were the poikilorgue and symphonium; of the German, some of which were small, and probably all ephemeral, were the colophon, phys-harmonica, colo-musicon, &c. In 1841 Mr. Evans, of Cheltenham, Eng., produced a harmonium of two banks of keys and 24 octaves of pedals; but the instrument was not brought prominently forward until 1859. The objects of this inventor were to overcome the nasal and harsh quality of tone, and the slow speaking, then characterizing the French and English instruments; and he is said to have produced ultimately a pure tone of fine quality, with rapid utterance, and without loss of power. This is the form of harmonium to be found described in English works. In it the several rows or series of reeds designed to give the different registers or parts in the harmony performed are, as in the Alexandre organ, placed horizontally across the instrument, at the same level, and separated from each other by partitions; the arrangement being such that the particular compartments or series to which the air shall be admitted in performing are determined by the knobs or stops that have been drawn out at the time. (See ORGAN.) In the English, as in the French instruments, also, the tardy response of the reeds to the action of the air is corrected, in most instances, by a device known as the percussion, by which, the proper stop being drawn, the touching of any key instantly causes the blow of a small hammer on the reed, its vibration, thus promptly begun, being then continued by the current of air. In all these forms, moreover, the agitation of the reeds is produced by means of more dense or compressed air forced out of a bellows across the reeds, and acting of course against the ordinary atmospheric pressure on the opposite side; and generally the reeds themselves are placed low in the instrument, often beneath the key board, so that the sound is liable to be somewhat smothered or interfered with in consequence. Some radical improvements were invented by Mr. J. Carhart (see MELODEON), the changes introduced by him having been worked out as early as 1839, and his instruments being manufactured in large numbers, in Buffalo, N. Y., in the year 1846. On the principle of the superior fulness and sweetness of those tones in the accordion made when the air is drawn into the bellows, as compared with those formed by forcing the air out, he so constructed the bellows of the melodeon that it should expel the air from the chamber into which the reed passages opened; this chamber and the space within the bellows freely communicating, and being maintained while playing in the condition of a partial vacuum by means of stout springs, which gradually distend the bellows as often as force has been used to compress and empty it of the entering air. This required that the reeds also should be reversed, the passages admitting air into the exhausted chamber, and the reeds being acted

on by the in-flowing streams of air. As a result of this arrangement, all the registers open directly into the one exhausted chamber; and they are conveniently placed in rows one over the other in the manner of shelves or successive segments, each horizontal row divided in the middle to form two registers. The construction of this part of the instrument finally adopted and now in use is the invention of Mr. E. P. Needham. Again, to open the registers, complicated connections and slides are not required, but simply for each a narrow horizontal door hinged on its lower edge, and directly pulled down by a wire making a single angle with the draw-knob. The chamber being during performance partially exhausted, if the edges of the several upright shelves or segments and of the horizontal doors to the registers are properly adapted and faced with soft leather, the external atmospheric pressure completes the connection of these parts, and secures air-tightness and strength of the whole; while in other instruments the condensed air within operates continually to strain and weaken the connections. Thus, in this instrument, the parts are readily taken apart for repairs, being stayed by pins only, and as quickly put together again; and the reeds are thus directly accessible. The closing of any register is made to open a small valve within it, called a pneumatic stop, by which communication with the exhausted chamber is at once made both above and below the reeds, and the latter are then within the exhausted chamber; but upon opening the register, this valve closes, and thus other communication is cut off above, and the reeds have the exhausted space now only within, the atmosphere acting from without. The touching of any key is made to open (if the instrument have but one bank of keys) the corresponding valve in every register. If then all the registers be open, all the reeds so uncovered are caused by the entering air to sound; if some of the registers only are open, only the reeds in these can sound. With two banks of keys, couplers are required in order to put all the registers at pleasure under command of one. When by couplers the keys have thus been connected with valves in all the registers, the drawing of the knob grand jeu, or grand organ, opens all the registers, and affords remarkable power of tone and effect. These arrangements are more common in the larger instruments or harmoniums. By variously curving the reed in an inward direction, its impact upon the air is also modified; and Mr. Carhart was in this way enabled to secure the effect known as voicing, as well as some of the differences of quality required for the different registers. In any reed, the rapidity of vibration, and hence the pitch, depend on several particulars, chiefly the length and weight of the reed, and its relative thickness at the two ends. If the reed is thick at the free end and thin at the fixed, its tone is deep; if the reverse, acute. Hence, the reeds are roughly at

tuned by giving them certain lengths and thicknesses, and then more accurately by scraping off a little as may be required from the free or the fixed extremity. The Alexandre organ is made of different sizes, the largest corresponding to a 16-fect pipe organ, and by combinations giving 7 octaves. Its usual stops are the English horn and flute, and again the bassoon and hautboy, forming the ordinary diapasons, and answering to the compass from an 8-feet pipe; drone and clarinet, an octave below; clarion and fife, an octave above; 2 forte stops, to increase the volume of sound; a principal, which opens all the stops at once; the two stops first named also actuating the percussion; and two stops, expression à la main, and expression of pedals, by which superior power of expression, or swell and diminuendo, is secured by merely varying the pressure of the fingers, or of the feet. With these are sometimes found also the sourdine, modifying the tone of certain stops, voix céleste, voix humaine, musette, and tremolo. REES, ABRAHAM, D.D., a British divine and scholar, born at Llanbrynmair, Wales, in 1743, died June 9, 1825. He studied for the ministry at Hoxton academy, where he was appointed tutor in his 19th year, which position he retained for more than 22 years. In 1768 he became also pastor of a Presbyterian congregation in Southwark, and in 1783 in the Old Jewry. From 1786 to 1795 he was also president of the dissenting academy at Hackney. Many of his sermons were published at intervals, and he contributed to the "Monthly Review." In 1776 he was engaged to edit a new edition of Chambers's "Cyclopædia," which was completed in 1786 (4 vols. fol.); and that work having proved very successful, he began in 1802 the publication of "Rees's Cyclopædia," which was completed in 45 vols. 4to. in 1819. REEVE. See RUFF.

REEVE, CLARA, an English novelist, born in Ipswich in 1738, died there in Dec. 1808. She was the daughter of the Rev. William Reeve, rector of Treston and of Kerton in Suffolk, and perpetual curate of St. Nicholas, and studied under her father. Her first literary work was a translation from the Latin of Barclay's romance of Argenis, which she published in 1762, under the title of "The Phoenix;" and in 1767 appeared her "Champion of Virtue," afterward called "The Old English Baron," the work upon which her reputation now almost exclusively rests. This tale was written in imitation of Walpole's "Castle of Otranto," of which romance Miss Reeve was a great admirer. Its success prompted her to devote herself more closely to literary pursuits, and she produced successively "The Two Mentors," "The Progress of Romance," "The Exile," "The School for Widows," "Plans of Education," and "Memoirs of Sir Roger de Clarendon." Her works were very popular in her time, but they are now forgotten with the exception of her first novel.

REEVE, TAPPING, an American lawyer, born

in Brookhaven, Long island, in Oct. 1744, died in Litchfield, Conn., Dec. 13, 1823. He was graduated at Princeton college in 1763, and 9 years after removed to Litchfield, Conn., where he began the practice of law. In 1784 he instituted the Litchfield law school, which soon became celebrated throughout the Union, and of which he was the sole instructor until 1798, when he associated with him James Gould, continuing to give lectures himself until 1820. He was a judge of the superior court from 1798 to 1814. In politics he was a federalist; and he was the first eminent lawyer in America who labored to effect a change in the laws regarding the property of married women. REFERENCE. See ARBITRATION.

REFLECTORS. See BURNING MIRRORS. REFORMATION, the historical name for the great religious movement of the 16th century, which divided the Latin Catholic church into two opposing sections, and resulted, after many theological, political, and social struggles and convulsions, in the establishment of the various ecclesiastical organizations of evangelical or Protestant Christendom. Originating in the 16th century and in the heart of Europe, its spirit has controlled the history of the Teutonic races ever since, has shaped the modern institutions and fortunes of Germany, Scandinavia, Holland, England, and Scotland, and has made its influence felt in all parts of the globe. There were many "reformers before the reformation," and almost every doctrine of Luther had its advocates long before him. The whole struggling of medieval Catholicism toward reform and liberty; the reformatory councils of Pisa, Constance, and Basel; the long continued conflict between the German emperors and the popes; the spiritualistic piety and theology of the mystics of the 14th and 15th centuries; the Waldenses and Albigenses in France and northern Italy; the revival of letters and classical learning under the direction of Agricola, Reuchlin, and Erasmus; the rise of the national languages and letters in connection with the feeling of national independence; the invention of the printing press; Wycliffe and the Lollards in England, Huss and the Hussites in Bohemia, Savonarola with his politico-religious reform movement, and Arnold of Brescia, in Italy; the theological writings of Wesel, Goch, and Wessel in Germany and the Netherlands; all these and many similar persons and movements were so many preparations, negative or positive, direct or indirect, for the reformation of the 16th century. It is freely admitted that various secondary causes, and among them many bad men and motives, had their full share in the progress of the reformation, as they sometimes had in the first introduction of Christianity itself among heathen fations. It is equally true that the reformation gave rise to various radical and fanatical movements in theology, religion, and politics; but these are the excrescences, the morbid extremes and caricatures of Protestantism, against which its true genius al