CHELYABINSK

chelyabinsk, a town of russia, in the orenburg government, at the east foot of the urals, is the head of the siberian railway, 624 m. by rail e.n.e. of samara and 154 m. by rail s.s.e. of ekaterinburg. pop. (1900) 25,505. it has tanneries and distilleries, and is the centre of the trade in corn and produce of cattle for the ural iron-works. the town was founded in 1658. chelys (gr. [greek: chelus], tortoise; lat. _testudo_), the common lyre of the ancient greeks, which had a convex back of tortoiseshell or of wood shaped like the shell. the word _chelys_ was used in allusion to the oldest lyre of the greeks which was said to have been invented by hermes. according to tradition he was attracted by sounds of music while walking on the banks of the nile, and found they proceeded from the shell of a tortoise across which were stretched tendons which the wind had set in vibration (_homeric hymn to hermes_, 47-51). the word has been applied arbitrarily since classic times to various stringed instruments, some bowed and some twanged, probably owing to the back being much vaulted. kircher (_musurgia_, i. 486) applied the name of _chelys_ to a kind of viol with eight strings. numerous representations of the _chelys_ lyre or _testudo_ occur on the greek vases, in which the actual tortoiseshell is depicted; a good illustration is given in _le antichita, di ercolano_ (vol. i. pl. 43). propertius (iv. 6) calls the instrument the _lyra testudinea_. scaliger (on manilius, _astronomicon_, proleg. 420) was probably the first writer to draw attention to the difference, between _chelys_ and _cithara_ (q.v.). (k. s.)