BELT

belt, thomas (1832-1878), english geologist and naturalist, was born at newcastle-on-tyne in 1832, and educated in that city. as a youth he became actively interested in natural history through the tyneside naturalists' field club. in 1852 he went to australia and for about eight years worked at the gold-diggings, where he acquired a practical knowledge of ore-deposits. in 1860 he proceeded to nova scotia to take charge of some gold-mines, and there met with a serious injury, which led to his return to england. in 1861 he issued a separate work entitled _mineral veins: an enquiry into their origin, founded on a study of the auriferous quartz veins of australia_. later on he was engaged for about three years at dolgelly, another though small gold-mining region, and here he carefully investigated the rocks and fossils of the lingula flags, his observations being published in an important and now classic memoir in the _geological magazine_ for 1867. in the following year he was appointed to take charge of some mines in nicaragua, where he passed four active and adventurous years--the results being given in his _naturalist in nicaragua_ (1874), a work of high merit. in this volume the author expressed his views on the former presence of glaciers in that country. in subsequent papers he dealt boldly and suggestively with the phenomena of the glacial period in britain and in various parts of the world. after many further expeditions to russia, siberia and colorado, he died at denver on the 21st of september 1878. belt (a word common to teutonic languages, the old ger. form being _balz_, from which the lat. _balteus_ probably derived), a flat strap of leather or other material used as a girdle (q.v.), especially the _cinctura gladii_ or sword-belt, the chief "ornament of investiture" of an earl or knight; in machinery, a flexible strap passing round from one drum, pulley or wheel to another, for the purpose of power-transmission (q.v.). the word is applied to any broad stripe, to the belts of the planet jupiter, to the armour-belt at the water-line of a warship, or to a tract of country, narrow in proportion to its length, with special distinguishing characteristics, such as the earthquake-belt across a continent.