Creta, is a white earth found plentifully in Britain, France, Norway, and other parts of Europe; said to have been anciently dug chiefly in the island of Crete, and thence to have received its name of Creta. They have a very easy way of digging chalk in the county of Kent in England. It is there found on the sides of hills; and the workmen undermine it so far as appears proper; then digging a trench at the top as far distant from the edge as the undermining goes at bottom, they fill this with water, which soaks through in the space of a night, upon which the whole flake falls down at once. In other parts of the kingdom, chalk generally lies deeper, and they are forced to dig for it at considerable depths, and draw it up in buckets.
Chalk is of two kinds; hard, dry, and firm, or soft and unctuous; both of which are adapted to various purposes. The hard and dry kind is much the most perfect for burning into lime; but the soft and unctuous chalk is best for using as a manure for lands. Chalk, whether burnt into lime or not, is in some cases an excellent manure. Its mode of operating on the soil, is explained under the article AGRICULTURE, no. 21.
Pure chalk melts easily with alkali and flint into a transparent colourless glass. With alkaline salts it melts somewhat more difficulty; and with borax somewhat more easily than with flint or sand. It requires about half its weight of borax, and its whole weight of alkali, to fuse it. Sal mirabile, and finder, which do not vitrify at all with the crystalline earths, form, with half their weight of chalk, the first a yellowish black, the latter a greenish glass. Nitre, on the other hand, one of the most active fluxes for flint, does not perfectly vitrify with chalk. This earth notably promotes the vitrification of flint; a mixture of the two requiring less alkali than either of them separately. If glass made from flint and alkali is further saturated with the flint, so as to be incapable of bearing any further addition of that earth without becoming opaque and milky, it will still in a strong fire take up a considerable proportion, one-third or one-fourth of its weight of chalk, without injury to its transparency; hence chalk is sometimes made use of in compositions for glass, as a part of the salt may then be spared. Chalk likewise has a great effect in melting the stony matters intermixed with metallic ores, and hence might be of use in melting ores; as indeed limestone is used for that purpose. But it is remarkable, that chalk, when deprived of its fixed air, and converted into limestone, loses much of its disposition to vitrify. It is then found to melt very difficultly and imperfectly, and to render the glass opaque and milky.
Chalk readily imbibes water; and hence masses of it are employed for drying precipitates, lakes, earthy powders that have been leagued with water and other moist preparations. Its economical uses in cleaning and polishing metallic or glass utensils are well known. In this case it is powdered and washed from any gritty matter it may contain, and is then called whitening. In medicine it is one of the most useful absorbents, and is to be looked upon simply as such: the astringent virtues which some have attributed to it have no foundation, unless in as far as the earth is saturated with an acid, with which it composes a saline concrete manifestly sub-astringent. For the further properties of chalk, see CHEMISTRY, no. 33, 127, 191, 234, 277, 342.
Black Chalk, a name given by painters to a species of earth with which they draw on blue paper, &c. It is found in the earth in pieces from two to ten feet long, and from four inches to 20 in breadth, generally flat, but somewhat rising in the middle, and thinner towards the edges, commonly lying in large quantities together. While in the earth, it is moist and flaky; but being dried, it becomes considerably hard and very light; but always breaks in some particular direction; and if attentively examined when fresh broken, appears of a striated texture. To the touch it is soft and smooth, flains very freely, and by virtue of its smoothness makes very neat marks. It is easily reduced into an impalpable soft powder, without any diminution of its blackness: In this state it mixes easily with oil into a smooth paste; and being diffused through water, it slowly settles in a black flaky or muddy form; properties which make its use very convenient to the painters both in oil and water colours. It appears to be an earth quite different from common chalk, and rather of the flaky bituminous kind. In the fire it becomes white with a reddish cast, and very friable, retaining its flaky structure, and looking much like the white flaky masses which some sorts of pit-coal leave in burning. Neither the chalk nor these ashes are at all affected by acids.
The colour-shops are supplied with this earth from Italy or Germany; though some parts of England afford substances nearly, if not entirely, of the same quality, and which are found to be equally serviceable both for marking and as black paints. Such particularly is the black earth called kilow, said by Dr Merret in his *Pinax Rerum Britannicarum*, to be found in Lancashire; and by Mr Da Cotta, in his history of fossils, to be plentiful on the side near the top of Cay-Avon, an high hill in Merionethshire.
**Red Chalk**, an earth much used by painters and artificers, and common in the colour-shops. It is properly an indurated clayey ochre; and is dug in Germany, Italy, Spain, and France, but in greatest quantity in Flanders. It is of a fine, even, and firm texture; very heavy, and very hard; of a pale red on the outside, but of a deep dulky chocolate colour within. It adheres firmly to the tongue, is perfectly insipid to the taste, and makes no effervescence with acids.
**Chalk-Land.** Barley and wheat will succeed very well on the better sort of chalky land, and oats generally do well on any kind of it. The natural produce of this sort of land in weeds, is that sort of small vetch called the *tine-tare*, with poppies, may-weed, &c. Saint-foin and hop-clover will generally succeed tolerably well on these lands; and, where they are of the better sort, the great clover will do. The best manure is dung, old rags, and the sheep-dung left after folding them on it.
**Chalk-Stones,** in medicine, signify the concretions of calcareous matter in the hands and feet of people violently afflicted with the gout. Lewenhoeck has been at the pains of examining these by the microscope. He divides them into three parts. The first is composed of various small parcels of matter looking like white grains of sand; this is harder and drier, and also whiter, than the rest. When examined with large magnifiers, these are found to be composed of oblong particles laid closely and evenly together; though the whole small stones are opaque, their component parts of them are pellucid, and resemble pieces of horse-hair cut short, only that they are somewhat pointed at both ends. These are so extremely thin, that Mr Lewenhoeck computes that 1000 of them placed together would not amount to the size of one hair of our heads. The whole stones in this harder part of the chalk are not composed of these particles, but there are confusedly thrown in among them some broken parts of other substances, and in a few places some globules of blood and small remains of other juices. The second kind of chalky matter is less hard and less white than the former, and is composed of fragments or irregular parts of those oblong bodies which compose the first or hardest kind, and these are mixed among tough and clear matter, interspersed with the small broken globules of blood discoverable in the former, but in much greater quantity. The third kind appears red to the naked eye; and, when examined with glasses, is found to be a more tough and clammy white matter, in which a great number of globules of blood are interposed; these give it the red appearance it has.
**Challenge,** a cartel or invitation to a duel or other combat*. A challenge either by word or letter, or to be the bearer of such challenge, is punishable by fine and imprisonment on indictment or information.
**Challenge,** among hunters. When hounds or beagles, at first finding the scent of their game, presently open and cry, they are said to challenge.
**Challenge,** in the law of England, is an exception made to jurors*; and is either in civil or criminal cases.
1. In civil cases challenges are of two sorts: challenges to the array, and challenges to the poll.
1. Challenges to the array are at once an exception to the whole panel, in which the jury are arrayed, or Comment set in order by the sheriff in his return; and they may be made upon account of partiality or some default in the sheriff or his under officer who arrayed the panel. Also, though there be no personal objection against the sheriff, yet if he arrays the panel at the nomination, or under the direction of either party, this is good cause of challenge to the array. Formerly if a lord of parliament had a cause to be tried, and no knight was returned upon the jury, it was a cause of challenge to the array: also by the policy of the ancient law, the jury was to come *de vicineto*, from the neighbourhood of the vill or place where the cause of action was laid in the declaration: and therefore some of the jury were obliged to be returned from the hundred in which such vill lay; and, if none were returned, the array might be challenged from defect of hundreds. For, living in the neighbourhood, there were supposed to know beforehand the characters of the parties and witnesses; and therefore they better knew what credit to give to the facts alleged in evidence. But this convenience was over-balanced by another very natural and almost unavoidable inconvenience; that jurors coming out of the immediate neighbourhood, would be apt to intermix their prejudices and partialities in the trial of right. And this the law was so sensible of, that it for a long time has been gradually relinquishing this practice; the number of necessary hundreds in the whole panel, which in the reign of Edward III. were constantly six, being in the time of Fortescue reduced to four; afterwards by statute 27 Eliz. c. 6. to two; and at length, by statute 4 and 5 Anne, c. 16. it was entirely abolished upon all civil actions, except upon penal statutes; and upon those also by the 24 Geo. II. c. 18. the jury being now only to come *de corpore coemitatis*, from the body of the county at large, and not *de vicineto*, or from the particular neighbourhood. The array by the ancient law may also be challenged, if an alien be party to the suit, and, upon a rule obtained by his motion to the court for a jury *de medietate linguae*, such a one be not returned by the sheriff pursuant to the statute 28 Edward III. c. 13. enforced by 8 Hen. VI. c. 29. which enact, that where either party is an alien born, the jury shall be one half denizens and the other aliens, (if so many be forthcoming in the place), for the more impartial trial: A privilege indulged to strangers in no other country in the world; but which is as ancient in England as the time of king Ethelred, in whose statute *de monticelli Walliae*, (then aliens to the crown of England) c. 3. it is ordained, that "duodeni legales homines, quorum sex Walli et sex Angli erunt, Anglis et Wallis jus dicunto."
2. Challenges to the polls, *in capite*, are exceptions to particular jurors; and seem to answer the recusatio judicis in the civil and canon laws; by the constitutions of which, a judge might be refused upon any suspicion. Challenge. spicion of partiality. By the laws of England also, in the times of Bracton and Fleta, a judge might be refused for good cause; but now the law is otherwise, and it is held that judges or justices cannot be challenged. For the law will not suppose a possibility of bias or favour in a judge who is already sworn to administer impartial justice, and whose authority greatly depends on that presumption and idea. And, should the fact at any time prove flagrantly such, as the delicacy of the law will not presume beforehand, there is no doubt but that such misbehaviour would draw down a heavy censure from those to whom the judge is accountable for his conduct. But challenges to the polls of the jury (who are judges of fact) are reduced to four heads by Sir Edward Coke: propter honorei respectum; propter defectum; propter affictum; and propter delictum.
1. Propter honorei respectum; as, if a lord of parliament be impanelled on a jury, he may be challenged by either party, or he may challenge himself.
2. Propter defectum; as, if a juror be an alien born, this is defect of birth; if he be a slave or bondman, this is defect of liberty, and he cannot be a liber et legalis homo. Under the word homo also, though a name common to both sexes, the female is however excluded, propter defectum sexus: except when a widow feigns herself with child in order to exclude the next heir, and a supposititious birth is suspected to be intended; then, upon the writ de ventre inspiciendo, a jury of women is to be impanelled to try the question whether with child or not. But the principal deficiency is defect of estate sufficient to qualify him to be a juror, which depends upon a variety of statutes.
3. Jurors may be challenged propter affictum, for suspicion of bias or partiality. This may be either a principal challenge, or to the favour. A principal challenge is such, where the cause assigned carries with it, prima facie, evident marks of suspicion either of malice or favour: as, that a juror is of kin to either party within the ninth degree; that he has an interest in the cause; that there is an action depending between him and the party; that he has taken money for his verdict, &c., which, if true, cannot be overruled, for jurors must be omni exceptione majoris.
Challenges to the favour, are where the party hath no principal challenge; but objects only some probable circumstances of suspicion, as acquaintance, and the like; the validity of which must be left to the determination of trivi, whose office it is to decide whether the juror be favourable or unfavourable.
4. Challenges propter delictum, are for some crime or misdemeanor that affects the juror's credit, and renders him infamous: As for a conviction of treason, felony, perjury, or conspiracy; or if, for some infamous offence, he hath received judgment of the prier or the like.
II. In criminal cases, challenges may be made either on the part of the king, or on that of the prisoner; and either to the whole array, or to the separate polls, for the very same reasons that they may be in civil causes. For it is here at least as necessary as there, that the sheriff or returning officer be totally indifferent; that, where an alien is indicted, the jury should be de mediatate, or half foreigners, if so many are found in the place (which does not indeed hold in treasons, aliens being very improper judges of the breach of allegiance; nor yet in the case of Egyptians under the statute 22 Hen. VIII. c. 10.) that on every panel there should be a competent number of hundreders; and that the particular jurors should be omni exceptione majoris, not liable to objections either propter honorei respectum, propter defectum, propter affictum, or propter delictum.
Challenges on any of the foregoing accounts are styled challenges for cause; which may be without stint in both civil and criminal trials. But in criminal cases, or at least in capital ones, there is, in favorem vitae, allowed to the prisoner an arbitrary and capricious species of challenge to a certain number of jurors, without shewing any cause at all; which is called a peremptory challenge: a provision full of that tenderness and humanity to prisoners for which our laws are justly famous. This is grounded on two reasons:
1. As every one must be sensible what hidden impressions and unaccountable prejudices we are apt to conceive upon the bare looks and gestures of another; and how necessary it is, that a prisoner, when put to defend his life, should have a good opinion of his jury, the want of which might totally disconcert him; the law wills not that he should be tried by any one man against whom he has conceived a prejudice even without being able to assign a reason for such his dislike.
2. Because upon challenges for cause thrown, if the reason assigned prove insufficient to set aside the juror, perhaps the bare questioning his indifference may sometimes provoke a resentment; to prevent all ill consequences from which, the prisoner is still at liberty, if he pleases, peremptorily to let him aside.
This privilege of peremptory challenges, though granted to the prisoner, is denied to the king by the statute 33 Edward I. stat. 4, which enacts, that the king shall challenge no jurors without assigning a cause certain to be tried and approved by the court. However, it is held that the king need not assign his cause of challenge, till all the panel is gone through, and unless there cannot be a full jury without the persons so challenged. And then, and not sooner, the king's counsel must shew the cause: otherwise the juror shall be sworn.
The peremptory challenges of the prisoner must, however, have some reasonable boundary; otherwise he might never be tried. This reasonable boundary is settled by the common law to be the number of 35; that is, one under the number of three full juries. For the law judges, that 35 are fully sufficient to allow the most timorous man to challenge through mere caprice; and that he who peremptorily challenges a greater number, or three full juries, has no intention to be tried at all. And therefore it deals with one who peremptorily challenges above 35, and will not retract his challenge, as with one who stands mute or refuses his trial; by sentencing him to the peine forte et dure in felony, and by attainting him in treason. And so the law stands at this day with regard to treason of any kind. But by statute 22 Hen. VIII. c. 14. (which, with regard to felonies, stands unrepealed), no person arraigned for felony can be admitted to make more than 20 peremptory challenges.