Page:EB1911 - Volume 23.djvu/857

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814
RUDDER—RÜDESHEIM

and rarely exceeds 12 in. in length and 2 ℔ in weight. It feeds on small freshwater animals and soft vegetable matter, and spawns in April or May. It readily crosses with the white bream, and more rarely with the roach and bleak.


RUDDER (O.E. Rother, i.e. rower), that part of the steering apparatus of a ship which is fastened to the stern outside, and on which the water acts directly. The word may be found to be used as if it were synonymous with "helm." But the helm (A.S. Hillf, a handle) is the handle by which the rudder is worked. The tiller, which is perhaps derived from a provincial English name for the handle of a spade, has the same meaning as the helm. In the earliest times a single oar, at the stern, was used to row the vessel round. In later times oars with large blades were fixed on the sides near the stern. In Greek and Roman vessels two sets were sometimes employed, so that if the pitching of the ship lifted the after pair out of the water, the foremost pair could still act. As these ancient ships were, at least in some cases, sharp at both ends and could sail either way, steer (or steering) oars were fixed both fore and aft. The steer oar in this form passed through a ring on the side and was supported on a crutch, and was turned by a helm, or tiller. Norse and medieval vessels had, as far as we can judge, one steer oar only placed on the right side near the stern—hence the name "starboard," i.e. steerside, for the right side of the ship looking forward. In the case of small vessels the steer oar possesses an advantage over the rudder, for it can bring the stern round quickly. Therefore it is still used in whaling boats and rowing boats which have to work against wind and tide, and in surf when the rudder will not act. It is not possible to assign any date for the displacement of the side rudder by the stern rudder. They were certainly used together, and the second displaced the first in the course of the 14th century when experience had shown that the rudder was more effective at the stern than at the side. The rudder of a wooden ship when fully developed was composed of four pieces. The first or main piece was hung on to the stern post of the ship. Its upper portion was known as the rudder head, and was at first an oval shaft which passed into the ship through the rudder port, and to which the helm was fixed. A canvas bag called a rudder coat covered the opening to exclude the water. In later days Sir R. Seppings introduced the cylindrical form in order to prevent the water from coming into the round rudder port. Three back pieces were fastened to the main piece longitudinally. The whole were fastened together by iron bands called pintle straps, which had at the forward end a pin or pintle, which fitted into braces, i.e. fixed rings on the stern post, so that the rudder hung on hinges. The lower part of the main piece was bevelled, and so was the stern post, so as to allow the rudder to swing freely. A projecting piece called a chock or wood-lock was fixed in the head outside the ship in order to prevent the rudder from being lifted by the water out of its hinges. A small vessel can be steered by the helm or tiller, but in a larger it is necessary to apply a mechanical leverage. This was secured by carrying ropes, or in later times chains, to the sides of the ship, and then through blocks to the upper deck, round a barrel which is worked by the wheel. The principle of the rudder cannot alter, but the means employed to work it have been altered by the introduction of the screw, and by the increased size of ships. A single screw is placed in an open space before the stern post. As the opening thus created prevents the water from flowing directly on to the rudder, a screw steamer is sometimes difficult to steer. In order to make the rudder more manageable, it has been balanced, i.e. pivoted, on a shaft placed at about a third of its length from the foremost edge. In a double screw there is no opening, but the balanced rudder is still used, and the ship can be turned by reversing one of the screws. The need for more power to work the helm has led to the introduction of steam, and hydraulic steering apparatus which can be set in motion by a small wheel.

See Burney's Falconer's Dictionary (London, 1830); Torr's Ancient Ships (Cambridge, 1894); Nares, Seamanship (Portsmouth, 1882).


RUDDIMAN, THOMAS (1674–1757), Scottish classical scholar, was born in October 1674, at Raggal, Banffshire, where his father was a farmer. He was educated at Aberdeen University, and through the influence of Dr Archibald Pitcairne he was made assistant in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh. His chief writings at this period were editions of Florence Wilson's De Animi Tranquillitate Dialogus (1707), and the Cantici Sotomonis Paraphrasis Poetica (1709) of Arthur Johnston (1587–1641), editor of the Deliciae Poetarurn Scotoruni. On the death of Dr Pitcairne he edited his friend's Latin verses, and arranged for the sale of his valuable library to Peter the Great of Russia. In 1714 he published Rudiments of the Latin Tongue, which was long used in Scottish schools. In 1715 he edited, with notes and annotations, the works of George Buchanan in two volumes folio. As Ruddiman was a Jacobite, the liberal views of Buchanan seemed to him to call for frequent censure. A society of scholars was formed in Edinburgh to "vindicate that incomparably learned and pious author from the calumnies of Mr Thomas Ruddiman"; but Ruddiman's remains the standard edition, though George Logan, John Love, John Man and others attacked him with great vehemence. He founded (1715) a successful printing business, and in 1728 was appointed printer to the university. He acquired the Caledonian Mercury in 1729, and in 1730 was appointed keeper of the Advocates' Library, resigning in 1752. He died in Edinburgh, on the 19th of January 1757.

Besides the works mentioned, the following writings of Ruddiman deserve notice: An edition of Gavin Douglas's Aeneid of Virgil (1710); the editing and completion of Anderson's Selectus Diplomatum et Numismatum Scotiae Thesaurus (1739); Catalogue of the Advocates' Library (1753–42); and a famous edition of Livy (1751). He also helped Joseph Ames with the Typographical Antiquities. Ruddiman was for many years the representative scholar of Scotland. Writing in 1766, Dr Johnson, after reproving Boswell for some bad Latin, significantly adds—"Ruddiman is dead." When Boswell proposed to write Ruddiman's life, "I should take pleasure in helping you to do honour to him," said Johnson.

See Chalmers's Life of Ruddiman (1794); Scots Magazine, January 7, 1757.


RUDE, FRANÇOIS (1784–1855), French sculptor, was born at Dijon on the 4th of June 1784. Till the age of sixteen he worked at his father's trade as a stove maker, but in 1809 he went up to Paris from the Dijon school of art, and became a pupil of Castellier, obtaining the Grand Prix in 1812. After the second restoration of the Bourbons he retired to Brussels, where he got some work under the architect Van der Straeten, who employed him to execute nine bas-reliefs in the palace of Tervueren. At Brussels Rude married Sophie Fremiet, the daughter of a Bonapartist compatriot to whom he had many obligations, but gladly availed himself of an opportunity to return to Paris, where in 1827 a statue of the Virgin for St Gervais and a "Mercury fastening his Sandals" (now in the Louvre) obtained much attention. His great success dates, however, from 1833, when he received the cross of the Legion of Honour for his statue of a "Neapolitan Fisher Boy playing with a Tortoise," which also procured for him the important commission for all the ornament and one group in the Arc de l'Étoile. This group, the "Départ des volontaires de 1792," a work full of energy and fire, immortalizes the name of Rude. Amongst other productions we may mention the statue of the mathematician Gaspard Monge (1848), Jeanne d'Arc, in the gardens of the Luxembourg (1852), a Calvary in bronze for the high altar of St Vincent de Paul (1855), as well as "Hebe and the Eagle of Jupiter," "Love Triumphant" and "Christ on the Cross," all of which appeared at the Salon of 1857 after his death. He died suddenly on the 3rd of November 1855.

See also P. G. Hamerton, Modern Frenchmen, five biographies (1878); Carl Adolf Rosenberg, François Rude (1884); Louis Gonse, Les Chefs d'œuvre des musées de France (Paris, 1900); L. de Fourcaud, François Rude, sculpteur (Paris, 1904).


RUDERAL (Lat. rudus, rubbish), a botanical term for plants growing on rubbish heaps or in waste places.


RÜDESHEIM, a town of Germany in the Prussian Rhine province on the right bank of the Rhine, 19 m. S.W. of