chalk Soft, fine-grained, easily pulverized, white-to-grayish variety of limestone, composed of the shells of minute marine organisms. The pur¬ est varieties contain up to 99% calcium carbonate in the form of the min¬ eral calcite. Extensive deposits occur in western Europe south of Sweden and in England, notably in the chalk cliffs of Dover along the English Channel. Other extensive deposits occur in the U.S. from South Dakota to Texas and eastward to Alabama. Chalk is used for making lime and Portland cement and as a soil additive. Finely ground and purified chalk is known as whiting and is used as a filler, extender, or pigment in a wide variety of materials, including ceramics, putty, cosmetics, crayons, plas¬ tics, rubber, paper, paints, and linoleum. The chalk commonly used in classrooms is a manufactured substance rather than natural chalk.
Chalkis also called Khalkis \kal-'kes\ or Chalcis Vkal-sssX formerly Euripus Ve-vre-pos\ City (pop., 2001: 53,584), on the island of Euboea, Greece. It is situated off the Euripus Strait, which separates Euboea from the Greek mainland. The city was important as a commercial centre as
Chalcocite from Bristol, Conn.
EMIL JAVORSKY
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chalybite ► Chamberlain's Men I 369
early as the 7th century bc. It established colonies in Macedonia, Italy, and Sicily and was a base for campaigns against Athens until 411 bc. Aristotle died in Chalcis in 322 bc. The city became part of Greece in 1830.
chalybite See siderite
Chambal River Vchom-boL River, northern India. Rising in the west¬ ern Vindhya Mountains near Indore, it flows easterly 550 mi (900 km) before emptying into the Yamuna River, of which it is the chief tributary, west of Kanpur.
chamber music Music composed for small instrumental ensembles and performed without a conductor. Traditionally intended for perfor¬ mance in a room or reception hall, often solely for the performers’ own pleasure, chamber music is now often heard in concert halls. It began with the 16th-century instrumental consort, and long continued to be associ¬ ated with aristocratic households. The duo sonata (usually for violin and continuo) and trio sonata appeared in early 17th-century Italy. The string quartet arose in the 1750s and remains the best-known chamber genre and ensemble. The serenade, nocturne, and divertimento were Classical genres for varying instrumental forces, often intended to accompany meals and other activities. Standard ensembles include the string trio (violin, viola, cello), string quintet (two violins, two violas, cello), and piano trio (piano, violin, cello). The chamber orchestra, usually with fewer than 25 musicians, is often used for 18th-century music and usually requires a conductor. See also sonata.
chamber of commerce or commercial association Any of
various voluntary organizations of business firms, public officials, pro¬ fessional people, and public-spirited citizens whose primary interest is in publicizing, promoting, and developing commercial and industrial oppor¬ tunities in their local area, and usually also community schools, streets, housing, and public works. The International Chamber of Commerce (founded 1920) acts as the voice of the business community in the inter¬ national field and runs a court of arbitration for settling commercial dis¬ putes. National chambers of commerce exist in most industrialized, free- enterprise countries. The first to use the name was founded in Paris in 1601; the first U.S. chamber of commerce was that of the state of New York, founded in 1768.
Chamberlain Vcham-bor-lonV Sir (Joseph) Austen (b. Oct. 16, 1863, Birmingham, Warwickshire, Eng.—d. March 16, 1937, London) British statesman. Son of Joseph Chamberlain and half brother of Neville Chamberlain, he entered the House of Commons in 1892. He held a vari¬ ety of posts, including chancellor of the Exchequer (1903-05, 1919-21) and secretary of state for India (1915-17). As foreign secretary (1924- 29), he helped bring about the Locarno Pact, intended to secure peace in western Europe. For that accomplishment, he shared the 1925 Nobel Prize for Peace with Charles Dawes.
Chamberlain, Charles Joseph (b. Feb. 23, 1863, Sullivan, Ohio, U.S.—d. Feb. 5, 1943, Chicago, Ill.)
U.S. botanist. His research into the structure and life cycles of primitive plants (cycads) enabled him to sug¬ gest a course of evolutionary devel¬ opment for the egg and embryo of seed plants (spermatophytes) and to speculate about a cycad origin for flowering plants (angiosperms). He organized and directed the botanical laboratories at the University of Chi¬ cago (1897-1931), where, with plants collected in Mexico, Austra¬ lia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Cuba, he created the world’s fore¬ most collection of living cycads.
Chamberlain, Houston Stew¬ art (b. Sept. 9, 1855, Southsea,
Hampshire, Eng.—d. Jan. 9, 1927,
Bayreuth, Ger.) British-born Ger- manophile writer. An admirer of Richard Wagner, he wrote a biography of the composer and several books on his works (1892-95) and later mar¬ ried Wagner’s daughter. In his Foundations of the Nineteenth Century (2 vol., 1899), he presented a broad but biased analysis of European culture and proclaimed the racial and cultural superiority of the so-called Aryan
element in European culture. His theories, which owed much to the writ¬ ings of Joseph Arthur, count de Gobineau, influenced German nationalist thought, particularly Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist movement.
Chamberlain Vcham-bsr-linV, John (Angus) (b. April 16, 1927, Rochester, Ind., U.S.) U.S. sculptor. He studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and at Black Mountain College. In 1957 he had his first one-man exhibition in Chicago. His Abstract Expressionist sculptures are often constructed of fragments of automobiles, crushed and jammed together, and painted in bright, industrial colours; these produce an effect of isolated, frozen movement. He also exhibited paintings, prints, and films.
Chamberlain, Joseph (b. July 8, 1836, London, Eng.—d. July 2, 1914, London) British politician and reformer. Early success in business enabled him to retire at age 38 with a substantial fortune. He was elected to Parliament (1876-1906), where he became a leader of the left wing of the Liberal Party. In 1886, in oppo¬ sition to Irish Home Rule, he joined other dissident Liberals (Liberal Unionists) to defeat the Liberal gov¬ ernment. He used his control of the Liberal Unionists to pressure the subsequent Conservative govern¬ ment to adopt a more progressive social policy. As colonial secretary (1895-1903), he advocated tax reform and a federated empire of self-governing colonies, helping pass the Commonwealth of Australia bill (1900). He resigned when his proposals for a tariff giving prefer¬ ence to imperial products were rebuffed by the government.
Chamberlain, (Arthur) Nev¬ ille (b. March 18, 1869, Birming¬ ham, Warwickshire, Eng.—d. Nov. 9, 1940, Heckfield, near Reading, Hampshire) British prime minister (1937-40). Son of Joseph Chamberlain and half brother of Austen Chamberlain, he prospered in the metalworking industry in Birmingham; as the city’s lord mayor (1915-16) he organized England’s first municipal bank. He was a member of the House of Com¬ mons (1918—40), during which he served in Conservative governments as minister of health and chancellor of the Exchequer. As prime minister (1937-40), he sought to prevent the outbreak of a general European war over Adolf Hitler’s demand that Czechoslovakia cede the Sudetenland to Germany. In 1938 he and France’s Edouard Daladier granted most of Hit¬ ler’s demands in the Munich agreement, after which he returned to England a popular hero, speaking of “peace in our time.” He repudiated appeasement after Hitler seized the rest of Czechoslovakia, and when Germany attacked Poland, he declared war. He lost the support of many Conservatives after the failure of a British expedition to Norway and resigned in 1940.