HOLLER 96 ROMAN ARCHITECTURE the history of art at that school and taught there until the Sorbonne offered him a chair in his subject. He was recognized by the Academy in 1895 for his doctor's thesis. Later he wrote sev- eral plays, remarkable more for their style, vigor, and presentation of psycho- logical analysis than for conformity to good dramatic construction. Beginning in 1903, he published noteworthy bio- graphical and critical studies of musi- cians, artists, authors and upon aspects of the theater. He founded the "Revue Musicale" in 1901. As the author of "Jean-Christophe" he received one-quar- ter of the Nobel Prize in literature for 1915. This work, comprising three vol- umes has been translated into English and German. ROLLER (Coraciidx), a family of Picarian birds characteristic of the Ethi- opian and Oriental regions, though the common roller is extensively distributed in the Palsearctic region and a few spe- cies enter the Australian region. None are found in the New World. Madagas- car possesses three species peculiar to itself, and so different from one another that they are regarded as types of dif- ferent genera, and so different from other rollers that they are grouped into a separate sub-family Brachypteracianae; they are named ground rollers, and are nocturnal in habit. An Indian species, Eurystomus orientalis, is also nocturnal. The common roller (Coracias garrula) is an autumn or more rarely a spring vis- itor to the British Isles; and about 100 have been recorded since the first one was noticed by Sir Thomas Browne in 1644. Some have visited the Orkneys and Shetlands, one has been found as far W. as St. Kilda, and about half a dozen have been recorded from Ireland. It is a straggler to northern Europe; in central Europe it is common; in coun- tries bordering on the Mediterranean it is very abundant. It ranges through Asia to Omsk in Siberia and to north- west India. In winter it extends its migrations to Natal and Capo Colony. In size it is about a foot long. The general color is light bluish green; the mantle is chestnut-brown; the wings and rump are adorned with beautiful azure blue. The female resembles the male in plumage. Nesting takes place in the woody haunts in May. The nest, which is made in a hollow tree or wall, is built of a few chips, or of roots, grass, feath- ers, and hair, according to circumstances. The eggs are five or six in number and are of a glossy white color. The food consists of beetles and other insects cap- tured on the ground. The name "roller" is given to the bird on account of its varied and unsteady flight and the habit the male has, during the breeding season, of indulging in extraordinary tumbling antics, and turning somersaults in the air. ROLLING MILL, a combination of machinery used in the manufacture of malleable iron and other metals of the same nature. By it the iron which is heated and balled in the puddling fur- nace is made into bars or sheets. It consists of rollers, journaled in pairs in metallic boxes in the iron standards or cheeks, and capable of being set toward or from each other by means of set- screws. The grooves in the rolls are so made as to be co-active in giving the required form to the heated iron pass- ing between them. The face of each roller has a series of grooves gradually decreasing in size toward one end. The iron is passed through each in succes- sion, being thus gradually reduced in size and increased in length. By this operation two objects are effected: (1) The scoriae and other impurities are ex- pelled, and (2) the required form wheth- er of plate, bolt, or bar, is given to the metal. ROLLINS, WALTER HUNTINGTON, an American educator, born in Newton, Mass., in 1869. He was educated at Dartmouth and at the Andover Theo- logical Seminary. Ordained a congre- gational minister in 1898, he served as pastor in various churches, at Black- stone, Mass., and at Wilmington and Waterloo, la., until 1914, in which year he became president of Fairmount Col- lege, Wichita, Kan. ROLPH, JAMES, JR., an American merchant and public official, born in San Francisco, Cal., in 1869. He was edu- cated in the public schools and at Trin- ity Academy, San Francisco, beginning his mercantile career in 1888. He be- came a member of the firm of Hind, Rolph & Co., in 1898. He was an officer and director of various banks and ship- building concerns, as well as a vice- president of the Panama Pacific Inter- national Exposition. He was also a member and officer of the San Francisco merchant's exchange and of the ship owner's association of the Pacific Coast. He was mayor of San Francisco for three terms, beginning 1911. ROMAN ARCHITECTURE. It can hardly be said that the early Romans had any style of architecture of their own, since they borrowed their ideas of building first from the Etruscans and afterward from the Greeks. In the time of Romulus their dwellings were of the rudest description, being chiefly com-
