:MODERN BEDS. Throughout the Continent of Europe beds are of the open couch form, suit able in width for one person. They consist of a frame or bedstead, bearing one or two hair or wool mattresses: they are often provided with curtains, hanging from the ceiling. In Germany there is a common practice of placing large, flat bags of down above the other coverings of beds for the sake of warmth, and sometimes a bed of down altogether supplies the place of blankets. In Italy corn-busk mattresses are very common. Throughout America the beds are usually of the French, or open couch form. The simplest kind of bed yet invented—except, indeed, the Oriental rug spread on the floor—is one frequently to be seen in America. The bedstead consists of a folding trestle called a cot, constructed with canvas on the principle of a campstool, with a movable headboard at one end to retain the pillow. Its great advantage consists in its being easily folded up and put away in small space. Another device for saving space is the 'folding bed' proper, which is often constructed so as to resemble when closed a bookcase or some other piece of furniture. Such beds are useful where a bedroom must serve also for a sitting-room: but there are many objections, both [esthetic and sanitary. In America the English practice of providing a double bed instead of the Continental custom of furnishing a separate bed for each person prevails, although, largely for hygienic reasons, the single bed has become common. The English four-posted bed, or family bed, is a gigantic piece of furniture, having a roof or canopy supported by the four posts, which are generally of mahogany, and finely turned and carved. On rods along the cornice hang cur tains which can be drawn around the sides and foot. Lower wooden beds and beds of brass or iron have largely supplanted the old-fashioned four-poster, and are popular on account of their cleanliness and cheapness. See FURNITURE.
BED, or STRA'TUIVI. In geology, a layer or a number of layers of stratified sedimentary rock, with an approximately uniform litbologi cal character. If shale, sandstone, and lime stone succeed one another in layers, each forms an independent bed, or stratum; again, if a thick sandstone be composed of a number of layers, each of these layers, or certain groups of them, may be called 'beds,' or 'strata.' While most geologists confine the terms to layers of uniform vertical composition, there is a lack of uniform ity in usage as regards the number and thick ness of the layers to be included under them. For instance, 'stratum' is sometimes used as above defined, while 'bed' is applied to each of the constituent layers. Again, 'lied' and 'stratum' are used in the same sense either for a group of layers or for a single layer. The occurrence of sedimentary rocks in layers is described as 'bed ding' or `stratification."rhe cause of stratifica tion is the intermittent supply of materials for deposition, due to such causes as varying inten sity of wave-action, tides, or irregular deposition from rivers. When the stratification is obscure it would seem to indicate that the materials had been supplied with little or no intermission. The individual particles of strata or beds arc laid down in such a way that they tend to oppose their broader sides to the greatest stress acting upon them, which is compounded of gravity and the stress of moving water. The result is a gen eral arrangement of the greater diameters of the mineral particles in planes parallel to the planes of bedding or stratification. See LITnOGENESIS;