RACK

This article appears in Volume V22, Page 780 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: PYR-RAY

RACK , an homonymous word of which the principal branches are the words meaning (1) a mass of cloud driving before the wind in the upper air, (2) to draw off wine or other liquor from the lees, (3) a bar or framework of bars, (4) an

instrument

INSTRUMENT (Lat. instrumentum, from insincere, to build up, furnish, arrange, prepare)

of torture. The etymology of (1) shows that it is ultimately to be connected with " wreck " and " wrack," drifted seaweed, and means that which is driven by or drifts with the wind; cf. Norw. rak, wreckage, refuse, Icel. reka, to drive, toss. In (2) the term seems to have come from the Gascon wine-trade, as Skeat (Etym. Dict., 1910) points ;out, and was adapted from Prov. arracar, to decant wine, rata; the stems and husks of grapes, dregs. Both (2) and (3) are in origin to be connected. The O. E. reccan and Ger. recken mean " to stretch," and so " rack " means something stretched out, a straight bar or rail, especially a toothed bar gearing with a cog-wheel, a framework of bars, as in the cradle of upright bars in which

fodder

FODDER

can be placed for cattle, and the

instrument

INSTRUMENT (Lat. instrumentum, from insincere, to build up, furnish, arrange, prepare)

of torture, which in Ger. is Recke or Rackbank. The " rack " for torture was an oblong

frame

FRAME

wood

, slightly raised from the ground, having at one end a fixed bar to which the legs were fastened, and at the other a movable bar to which the hands were tied. By means of pulleys and levers this latter could be rolled on its own

axis

AXIS (Lat. for " axle ")

, thus straining the ropes till the sufferer's joints were dislocated. Its first employment in England is said to have been due to John Holland, 4th duke of Exeter, constable of the Tower in 1447, whence it was popularly known as " the Duke of Exeter's daughter."
In 1628 the whole question of its legality was 'raised by the attempt of the privy council to rack John Felton, the assassin of the duke of Buckingham. This the judges resisted, unani-
mously declaring its use to be contrary to the laws of England. RACKETT, or RACKETT-BASSOON (Fr. cervelas or cervelat;
Ger. Racket', Rankett or Wurstfagott), a kind of dwarf bassoon, now obsolete, with a

body

BODY

measuring only from 41 to I1 in. in length, but nevertheless containing the necessary length of tubing to give the bassoon or contra-bassoon pitch. The rackett consists of a barrel-like

body

BODY

, resembling the barrel drone of the musette (see BAGPIPE), made of

wood

or ivory. Round a centre tube are grouped eight parallel channels of very narrow cylindrical bore communicating with each other and forming a continuous tube nine times the length of the
small body.
A reed mouthpiece in combination with a cylindrical tube
invests the latter with the acoustic properties of a closed pipe by
creating a node at the. mouthpiece end; the fundamental note
given by such a tube is, therefore, an octave deeper in pitch than would
be an open pipe of the same length. The bassoon
has a conical bore and the properties of the open
pipe,wherefore the aggregate length of the channels
in the rackett only requires to be half that of the
bassoon, a physical phenomenon to which this
curious freak owed its existence. In the rackett
the holes are bored obliquely through from the
channels to the circumferencethree in front for
the left and three for the right hand, with an
additional hole for the little

finger

FINGER

; while at the
back are placed the vent and three holes, one for
the left thumb and two for the right, the second
hole being controlled by the ball of the thumb.
The rackett is played by means of a large

double

reed placed within a pirouette or cap, so that the
From Capt. C. R. lips do not come into contact with the reed, but
nay's Catilague ,f only send a stream of compressed air into the
Musical Instru- i
mews, by prouette, whereby the reed is set in vibration.
prtnis-
sion of Eyre & The consequence of this principle of construction,
Spottiswoode. peculiar to the bagpipe chaunter and drones (with a slight variation) and to cromornes, hautbois de Poitou and a few other obsolete

instruments

INSTRUMENTS

, is that no harmonics can be obtained, since the vibrating length and the tension of the reed cannot be controlled by the player; the compass is therefore obtained by means of the fundamental and of the ten holes of the instrument, aided by
cross-fingering. (K. S.)

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