e lower shrouds of a mast are extended and secured to the ship's
sides, consisting of dead-eyes, chain-plates, and chain-wale or
"channel."

CHAIR (in. Mid. Eng. _choere_, through O. Fr. _chaere_ or _chaiere_,
from Lat. _cathedra_, later _caledra_, Gr. [Greek: kathedra], seat, cf.
"cathedral"; the modern Fr. form _chaise_, a chair, has been adopted in
English with a particular meaning as a form of carriage; _chaire_ in
French is still used of a professorial or ecclesiastical "chair," or
_cathedra_), a movable seat, usually with four legs, for a single
person, the most varied and familiar article of domestic furniture. The
chair is of extreme antiquity, although for many centuries and indeed
for thousands of years it was an appanage of state and dignity rather
than an article of ordinary use. "The chair" is still extensively used
as the emblem of authority in the House of Commons and in public
meetings. It was not, in fact, until the 16th century that it became
common anywhere. The chest, the bench and the stool were until then the
ordinary seats of everyday life, and the number of chairs which have
survived from an earlier date is exceedingly limited; most of such
examples are of ecclesiastical or seigneurial origin. Our knowledge of
the chairs of remote antiquity is derived almost entirely from
monuments, sculpture and paintings. A few actual examples exist in the
British Museum, in the Egyptian museum at Cairo, and elsewhere. In
ancient Egypt they appear to have been of great richness and splendour.
Fashioned of ebony and ivory, or of carved and gilded wood, they were
covered with costly stuffs and supported upon representations of the
legs of beasts of the chase or the figures of captives. An arm-chair in
fine preservation found in a tomb in the Valley of the Kings is
astonishingly similar, even in small details, to that "Empire" style
which followed Napoleon's campaign in Egypt. The earliest monuments of
Nineveh represent a chair without a back but with tastefully carved legs
ending in lions' claws or bulls' hoofs; others are supported by figures
in the nature of caryatides or by animals. The earliest known form of
Greek chair, going back to five or six centuries before Christ, had a
back but stood straight up, front and back. On the frieze of the
Parthenon Zeus occupies a square seat with a bar-back and thick turned
legs; it is ornamented with winged sphinxes and the feet of beasts. The
characteristic Roman c