AIR CUSHION, kush'fin. A mattress or cushion compos.•1 of a hag or sack of air-tight fabric, which can he inflated, and which possesses many advantages of comfort, cleanliness, and portability. Air•beds were known as early as the beginning of the eighteenth century, but, being made of leather, were expensive. and it was only after the invention of air-tight or rub ber cloth that they could be constructed at a moderate cost. An air-hod consists of a sack in the form of a mattress, which may be divided into a number of compartments. each air-tight, or, as is more usual at present, it may have a single compartment with the walls tied to each other to preserve its shape when inflated. The bed is supplied with a valve. or valves, through which the air is blown in by a belb)ws or an air pump. They are especially valuable in many eases of sickness. and for use by camping parties. Air-inflated pillow: are made to go with the mat tresses. The air-en:hion is another contrivance of the same kind, the layer of rubber being se curely pasted or cemented to a layer of strong cloth. the cloth giving strength and the rubber impenetrability, and the 'Mode sack covered with ticking. The' chief drawback to these contri vances is their liability to being spoiled by a rent or a plinct GIRD, 5r1, TnomAs 1502-76 ) . A Scottish poet of considerable talent. He was horn at Bowden. in Roxburghshire, was educated at
the University of Edinburgh, and gained the friendship of many distinguished men. esitecially John Wilson, who always spoke of him in very high terms. In he became editor of The Itumfries Herald. a new journal. started on eon SetVatiVe principles, an office which he tilled till 1564. His works are not so well known as they de serve to be, from their intrinsic merit. In spite of very warm praise from Carlyle and others, they have failed to secure a large measure of public approbation. Tic Itcrirs Dream is IK.rhaps an exception to the rest. for it is both well known and admired. Thew is something almost Dantesque in the stern, intense. and sublime literalness of the eimeeptien. , Whether the seenes are cat a large scale. as in The Derirs Dream, or minute, as in Thr half, there is the same clear. vigorous, and pictur esque word-painting. In 1527 Aird published Rtdiaious Charart( risties, a piece of exalted prose-poetry; in 1545, The Old Paehtlor, a vol ume of tales and sketches; in 1545, a colleeted edition of his poems. a second edition of which appeared in 1556. and in 1552 be edited the select poems of David Nlacheth Moir the of Mackwood's.), prefixing a memoir. See his life and poems, edited by .1. Walla( e (1578).