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pl. of Stratum.

in general, artifice; deceptive device; secret plot; evil machination. Fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils. Shak. Those oft are stratagems which error seem, Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream. Pope.

Containing stratagem; as, a stratagemical epistle. [R.] Swift.

The art of drawing up an army, or any given number of men, in any geometrical figure, or of estimating or expressing the number of men in such a figure.

le. -- Angle meter, an instrument for measuring angles, esp. for ascertaining the dip of strata. -- Angle shaft (Arch.), an enriched angle bead, often having a capital or base, or both. -- Curvilineal angle, one formed by two curved lines. -- External angles, angles formed by the sides of any right-lined figure, wh…

An instrument to measure angles, esp. one used by geologists to measure the dip of strata.

Yielding anthracite; as, anthraciferous strata.

te directions. See Synclinal. Anticlinal line, Anticlinal axis (Geol.), a line from which strata dip in opposite directions, as from the ridge of a roof. -- Anticlinal vertebra (Anat.), one of the dorsal vertebræ, which in many animals has an upright spine toward which the spines of the neighboring vertebræ are inclin…

The crest or line in which strata slope or dip in opposite directions.

nea. (See Eye.) -- Aqueous rocks (Geol.), those which are deposited from water and lie in strata, as opposed to volcanic rocks, which are of igneous origin; -- called also sedimentary rocks.

Free from guile, art, craft, or stratagem; characterized by simplicity and sincerity; sincere; guileless; ingenuous; honest; as, an artless mind; an artless tale. They were plain, artless men, without the least appearance of enthusiasm or credulity about them. Porteus. O, how unlike the complex works of man, Heaven's e…

ating soils or rocks, for determining the quality of soils, or the nature of the rocks or strata upon which they lie, and for obtaining water. Auger bit, a bit with a cutting edge or blade like that of an anger.

ndary central line of any design. Anticlinal axis (Geol.), a line or ridge from which the strata slope downward on the two opposite sides. -- Synclinal axis, a line from which the strata slope upward in opposite directions, so as to form a valley. -- Axis cylinder (Anat.), the neuraxis or essential, central substance…

Barren regions, especially in the western United States, where horizontal strata (Tertiary deposits) have been often eroded into fantastic forms, and much intersected by canons, and where lack of wood, water, and forage increases the difficulty of traversing the country, whence the name, first given by the Canadian Fre…

An isolated or circumscribed formation, particularly where the strata dip inward, on all sides, toward a center; -- especially applied to the coal formations, called coal basins or coal fields.

Inclined upward; as, the basset edge of strata. Lyell.

A genus of large extinct mammals from the miocene strata of western North America. They were allied to the rhinoceros, but the skull bears a pair of powerful horn cores in front of the orbits, and the fore feet were four-toed. See Illustration in Appendix.

tion; savage; bloody; inhuman; fell. "The victim of a butcherly murder." D. Webster. What stratagems, how fell, how butcherly, This deadly quarrel daily doth beget! Shak.

A prisoner taken by force or stratagem, esp., by an enemy, in war; one kept in bondage or in the power of another. Then, when I am thy captive, talk of chains. Milton.

The act of seizing by force, or getting possession of by superior power or by stratagem; as, the capture of an enemy, a vessel, or a criminal. Even with regard to captures made at sea. Bluckstone.